All Fall Down
by SheWhomLaughsLast
Summary: Full Summary inside. Alex's true identity has been exposed and, after her escape from Division with Nikita's help, she's hit with a suspicious disease. With Alex weakening, Nikita's time is ticking away. Can she save Alex? Or has she failed her again?
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: Nikita and Alex are still at work to take Division down. But, when a Russian tips off Division about Alex's true identity, Nikita must take extreme steps to keep her safe. And when a mysterious but suspicious illness strikes Alex like a lightning bolt only days after her escape, Nikita will do whatever it takes to find Alex a cure, even if it means sprinting straight back to her own personal hell. As the disease worseness and Alex weakens, Nikita is running out of time. Can she save Alex?**

**Or has Nikita failed her again?**

**Chapter One**

**Prologue **

_**Nikita**_

This wasn't supposed to happen. Alex wasn't supposed to have made Agent; she wasn't supposed to have killed either. She was only supposed to be part of Division until we brought it down. She was only supposed to be Alex, definitely not known as Alexandra Udinov, Russian heiress. Alex wasn't supposed to get sick, she wasn't supposed to die. I hadn't realized how far they'd go to insure she'd be 'cancelled' as they put it. She was supposed to have died in the fire Division set to her home in Russia nearly six years ago. And now that they found out she was alive...they traced it back to me. They know I was the one to save her, that I'm the one who's been teaching her everything I know, that she knew everything and is working with me.

The infection that hit her...the virus that was slowly eating her strength alive was as vicious as a rabid dog. Division was full of sick, tricky bastards but this...this was beyond what even I thought they were capable of.

"Alex, I need the location of that chemist." The phone clattered to the floor followed by a heavy thud and faint, rapid pants. "Alex!" I could tell without being there that she'd fallen or passed out, struggling for air as the infection started choking the air from her lungs. "Alex! Can you hear me!" I yelled into the phone, earning a few strange looks from passersby. Two thuds and a drag were all that echoed through the ear piece.

"N-Nikita" she wheezed, picking up the phone, half my name falling away as she ran out of breath. "I-I can't move...my legs...I can't breathe."

"Hold tight! I'm heading back!"

"Nikita..." she breathed again, her voice trembled with emotion. "Nikita I'm scared..."

"I know, I know Alex I'm coming right back alright? Just stay with me ok?" there was no answer "Alex?"

"Hello Nikita." A horribly familiar voice smirked through the phone.

"Percy, you sick son of a bi—"

"I truly wish I had more time to chat." He cut me off "But I've got important matters to attend to. Ms. Udinov will be taken care of appropriately, you can be rest assured." I clenched the phone in my hand so hard it squeaked in protest.

"If you so much as touch a SINGLE hair on her head...!"

"You'll do what, Nikita? Sick the Canadians on us?"

"Not only that, I'll put my heel through your skull."

"I'd like to see you try." The dial tone rang out into my ear. I threw the phone to the ground and crushed it under my boot.

"Try to stop me." I looked around the busy street, already plotting my method of attack "Hold on Alex, I'm coming."

**Let me know what you think, is it worth continuing? If not I should probably be tending to my other stories but...I just really wanted to write a story for this show. But hey, if you people out there don't think it's a good idea, just say so and I'll stop. **

**So leave a review with your thoughts at the review thing.**


	2. Guardian Vs Angel

**Chapter Two**

_**Alex**_

"They know!" I panted into the phone once she picked up. I was sprinting down the busy street, away from Division.

"Know what?" Nikita asked, sounding tired.

"Everything! They know about me, they know about you, they know about me AND you and-and I had to fight to get out of there! Everyone came at me at once! It was crazy!"

"Alright, calm down Alex. Here's what I want you to do." I listened intently, hearing my heart hammering in my ears. "I want you to run, I want you to keep running as fast and as far as you can. Stop for nothing if you can help it. Don't go home, don't come here, not yet. Stay away from areas too deserted and make sure you're never anywhere by yourself. I'll find you." She hung up and I did what I was told. I took off sprinting down the street, as fast as I possibly could. I don't know how they knew what they did. That I'm Alexandra Udinov, Russian Heiress instead of Alex, ex-coke whore/alcoholic. All I know is that, when I was listening in on Percy's conversation with Michael...they knew. I had to fight my way through guards and the kids training in order to get out of there. I ran. I kept running through the crowds of people, sticking close to large groups and then sprinting between open gaps. They were coming after me, I was sure of it. Small visions of the fight flashed through my head with each stride. I hit Jayden hard enough that her head snapped to the side. She went down like a sack of potatoes, probably the only punch I liked delivering. Another one ran at me and I flipped him over my hip then threw him to the ground in front of a charging girl. She fell over him and hit the floor face first. Her nose broke with a sickening crack. When I'd managed to get to the escape hatch I'd used so many times before, my hands were covered in blood. Some of it from the bruised and broken knuckles I'd given myself, torn the skin from hitting too hard, but most of it was from the others. The joints in my hand sent tremors of dull pain shooting through my nerves. Luckily, the cold temperature numbed me up pretty good. Not to mention all the endorphins and adrenaline pounding through my veins.

The side walk was clear for a block or two a head of me. I hesitated. If I ran out in the open, it'd attract al sorts of attention. If I walked, I'd look normal. But I'd be an easy target for a sniper. Division wasn't looking to take me alive. My body was worth more to them dead than alive. A bus roared down the street and I smirked to myself. _Three, two—_a bullet shattered the glass of the store window behind me, contacting maybe two inches above my head. I hit the deck like everyone else. When the bus was close enough that it hid me, I stood up and ran beside it, using it as cover. Banging on the door when it reached a bus stop, I glanced around anxiously. They were getting sloppy. Which only meant they REALLY wanted me dead. The door opened and I threw myself inside, dug around in my pocket for a coin. I found a couple quarters and put them in with shaky hands.

The bus was packed. Good. I took a seat near the front, beside a man reading the newspaper. The bus started moving a couple moments later. I sighed in relief; I was safe for now. Nikita would find me soon enough, help me get away. "Not a great escape plan." He murmured and I froze. "Hello Alexandra." Michael said, setting down the paper. Laying it over the pistol concealed in his lap.

"Michael…" I squeaked and looked around desperately. He wouldn't kill me here. He couldn't. There're too many witnesses. Too many innocent civilians.

Nice hands. Get those beating up members of Division? You're friends? It was clever, really. You and Nikita's little plan to bring down Division." I looked away, out the opposite window. "Even after we gave you a new start…you still wanted to betray us."

"A new start!" I snapped, maybe a little too loud, earning a few curious glances from the others around us. "You took my family away from me! Nikita and my father were the only ones who ever cared about me enough to save my life." A flash of anger passed through Michael's eyes.

"Here's the drill, Udinov." He snarled in a low voice. "At the next stop, you and I are getting off. Understand?"

"So you'll just hand me over to the people who want me dead?"

"That's exactly what I'm going to do. So far as anyone knows, Alexandra Udinov died in that fire all those years ago. We're just putting a ghost back in the grave." The bus squealed to a stop in front of a department store. A black car waited around the corner that much I was sure from the reflection I saw in the circular mirror on the building on the other side of the alley. "Get up." He ordered, grasping my arm, and I obeyed. People were filing out, empting steadily. Before I'd even had the chance to take a step, an elegant, olive tone hand grasped my free arm gently. I nearly cried out in relief.

"Nikita." Michael growled, appraising the woman standing next to me.

"Michael." Nikita matched his aggressive tone. The bus driver glanced back us with unease.

"You!" Michael pointed at the driver, who swallowed hard in response. "Take a break for a couple minutes." The older man nodded and nearly ran out the doors.

"Let her go Michael." My Sensei said warningly, noting the gun her held in his hand and pressed into my side.

"I'm following order Nikita. That's all. Something you obviously have a problem doing."

"Yeah, I had a problem with letting a thirteen-year-old girl burn alive, sue me." My skin crawled at the thought, the memory. Nikita had a glint in her eyes, one as dangerous as a wild animal. "The Michael I knew would have a problem with that too." He glared at her, his eyes narrowing to small slits. "Let us walk away, Michael. You never saw her, you never saw me. You lost Alex in the crowd when the bus was emptying out." I looked at the man who'd become almost like a twisted father figure to me, feeling like a little kid again. Ever so slowly his grip relaxed on my arm and he fled the bus, exiting onto the sidewalk. Once he was outside, he snapped his head from side to side, like he was searching for me. Nikita and I both watched him leave, not moving a muscle until he disappeared around the corner and a fresh flood of people filed in, including the driver. I then flung my arms around her and cried. Not heavily, not to make a scene but…there was just so much going on…so much had happened in the past hour or two that I just broke down. Nikita wrapped her slender arms around my shoulders and lowered us down to the seat. "It's alright, Alex. It's alright" she whispered softly, her fingers combing through my hair gently. "You're safe now. You're alright."

"What are we gonna do?" I asked when we got to Nikita's place. She began wiping up my knuckles the best she could in a rush. She told me she'd have to do a better job later, when she had more time. Then she immediately began packing two duffle bags with supplies we would need.

"We can't stay here, Division will tear this entire city apart looking for you. I have a hideout in Vancouver we can go to. It's secure, the US government has no authority there and I've got allies everywhere." I paced as I changed into the fresh clothes she leant me. I picked up the shirt. She looked up, squinted and stood up. "What's that?" she walked over to me.

"What?"

She twisted me around almost roughly. "That, right there" she poked directly between my shoulder blades and I jerked away from the touch. A burning, but stinging pain startled me.

"I got in a fight. I told you; five-hundred-billion of them, one of me. I got hit a couple of times." She nodded, a serious look on her face.

"Right. Ok. So what? You got hit when you turned around to run?"

"Yeah, I guess so. There was so much going on...I don't really remember."

"That's fine, we have to get a car, big gas tank, big enough for us to drive to Vancouver without stopping more than a couple times." I nodded. I knew better than to offer my car. It was Division's. They'd find us as soon as we turned it on. "We leave in a couple hours. Try to get some rest, we've got a long, long drive a head of us." I nodded and moved towards the cot at the far end of the room. My legs suddenly felt like they were made of lead and nailed to the floor. Nikita had to help me the rest of the way, pull back the wool blanket and lower me down carefully. Feeling the rough canvas of the cot under me gave me a strange sense of comfort, safety. I started drifting as soon as my head hit the pillow, my mind swimming with disjointed thoughts, from wonder what colour the sky was right then to thinking about how exactly moving to Canada would be like. The last thing I felt was her warm hand gently dabbing my broken skin with a damp, warm cloth before I gave into the darkness completely; a Russian melody floated from her lips, lulling me away.


	3. Innocence

**Just wanted to thank you guys for all the alerts and favourites. That's awesome and I hope you continue to enjoy this story!**

**Chapter Three**

_**Nikita**_

"Alex" I kneeled by the cot of the sleeping girl, gently pushing hair from her face. "Alex, we gotta get moving." I said softly, not loud enough to jerk her awake suddenly, but enough to coax her out of unconsciousness. She groaned and stirred slowly, barely even moving. Alex opened her eyes, blinking drowsily, obviously disorientated. It'd gone from midday to total darkness in all of a couple hours, three to be exact. I'd finished her hand in the first hour, packing all my essential belongings in the second and went out to buy her at least three days worth of clothing. I had to keep the rest of my money for gas, food and other supplies we may need. She raised her bad hand and paused when she felt the bandage touch her forehead. "You ripped open the skin on your middle finger from your first knuckle to the second, I had to do some stitching to fix it up and use gauze on the other ones. The tenser was just so you didn't hurt it or reopen the wound when you slept." She blinked a couple more times.

"I didn't even feel it..."

"The sleep you fell into was so deep, I'm surprised it didn't take me a good couple of minutes to get you awake."

"I still feel like I need to sleep for a million years." She mumbled. The dark rings around her eyes were painfully obvious, to me at least. She did look like she hadn't slept in days, weeks even. She rubbed her eye carefully and looked up at the ceiling.

"Need help getting up?" I asked and she shook her head once, stopped and nodded.

"Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

"Alex, you alright?" I asked the girl sitting next to me in the passenger's seat. She looked uncomfortable, exhausted and, well, like hell.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just feeling a little...off I guess." She shook her head vigorously, like she could dislodge the feeling, then rubbed her face before leaning back against the window. We'd been on the road for a couple days now and were getting closer to the border, taking back roads and short cuts where I could find them to shorten the time. We slept in motels and left before the maid service even woke up, heading back out on the road. Alex had been sleeping longer and longer each day, there were a couple occasions in which I wrapped her up still unconscious in a sleeping bag and carried her through the snow drift and flurries to the car. She refused to tell me if she had any symptoms or what was going on. I reached over and smooth my hand across her forehead at a red light.

"You feel a little warm..." I muttered to myself under my breath. She pushed my hand away.

"I'm fine Nikita. Let's just focus on getting the hell out of here, alright?"

"Alex, if you're not feeling well—"

"I'm FINE." She snarled at me and I looked over at her then back to the road as the light changed colour. "Sorry." She mumbled, apologising for snapping and I couldn't help but smile slightly and ruffle her long hair.

"It's alright, I'm just worried. That's all." Her nightmares were getting worse too. That part I didn't mention. There was no point in making her worry about them in the waking hours if something really was wrong. I stayed up for two days straight in order to watch her day and night and...they seemed more violent and more terrifying that they'd been way back when I got her clean. "Get some rest Alex, we'll have to get rid of the car a while away from the border and walk to find a new form of transportation." She nodded slowly, grudgingly. Walking in negative twenty degrees Celsius was no one's idea of fun, but it was a necessary procedure if we wanted to get to Vancouver without Division breathing down our necks. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she slowly closed her eyes and leaned her head against the cold glass of the jeep, her breathing becoming deep and even as she slowly drifted. I sighed and held my breath for a second, I don't know why. It was almost like I expected Division to shoot her right now, for her blood to cover me as her life faded away in the passenger's seat. I exhaled heavily and shook my head. Something was wrong with her, physically, I mean. I had a rough idea of just what it was. It could've been the stress from the past couple days events. But if it actually turned out to be what I thought it was… I shook my head again, clearing my mind. Now wasn't the time to freak out about that.

I just had to get us across the border.

An hour or so later, I pulled into a hotel parking lot and glanced up at the tall building, almost twenty stories high. Good. I looked over at Alex, sleeping soundly with her face pressed against the glass, her hair rumpled on one side. I'd grabbed a the wool blankets from the back seat and draped them over her, she'd pulled them closer in her sleep. "Alex" I said softly, carefully shaking her shoulder to wake her up. "Come on, we have to get out now." She nodded with her yes still closed and unbuckled and pushed open the door. The cold air ripped through the truck and stopped her in her tracks. "Here" I reached into the backseat and grabbed a heavy down jacket. "It's nearly twenty below." She grumbled that I should have told her that before she opened the door but took the jacket all the same. When she finally did take a look around, her eyes widened at the large building in front of us.

"A five-star hotel..?" she rasped in a rough voice. That only added more concern to my already worried train of thought.

"Don't get your hopes up." I handed her a pair of insulated leather gloves and wrapped a scarf around her neck. "We're just ditching the car here. If Division is tracking us..."

"They'll spend at least a day or two searching the building after they find the car." She finished my sentence, looking a little disappointed that we wouldn't be spending the night here. I, on the other hand, was proud she'd made that connection quickly, after I'd burst her bubble. IT meant I did my Sensei/Guardian job well. She knew how to throw off pursuing enemies. "Come on" I grasped her hand in mine; the leather of my glove rubbed against hers, making a creaking noise. "We got a lot of ground to cover." She nodded and returned the small embrace with a squeeze of her fingers.

We sat down in the middle of the Grey Hound Bus we'd gotten tickets for just moments before departure. The bus would take us about half a mile to the border where we could easily walk the remaining distance. I bought Alex a coffee at the shop while we waited, something with a lot of caffeine and warm enough to help her warm up after a long trek through the freezing streets. She seemed to be awake and alert now, a good change from the alternative we'd been struggling with all day. She watched the buildings and trees we passed through the fading light of the sun. "Where are we gonna go after we reach Vancouver?" she asked quietly, trying not to wake the other passengers. I looked at her from the movie I was blindly watching. She turned to face me and I sighed, tired from the lack of sleep.

"I have a close friend living just outside down town, in a smaller city. He'll be expecting us at a café meet I've set up."

"Does he live alone?" She asked curiously. I shook my head

"No. He's got two daughters; his wife died giving birth to the youngest one." She fell quiet suddenly, as she always did when death was brought into the conversation. "On the bright side…" I said, catching her attention again "He's got a surprise waiting for you there." She looked at me questioningly

"I hate surprises." She grumbled, crossing her arms, looking back out the window. I smirked to myself as I turned back to the movie, watching the actors run across the screen. She shivered next to me, the cabin of the bus made it a little chilly to be in, heaters didn't work so well on this bus, lucky us. I wrapped one arm around Alex's shoulders and she leaned into me, probably favouring my body heat over a cold pane of glass. I rested my cheek on top of her head. Alex's nightmares seemed to keep at bay if there was gentle physical contact. My hand resting on her shoulder, gently singing to her as she slept or even just a slight touch when she cried out in her sleep seemed to settle her back down again. The first night she'd been out of the sauna was the worst, but also helped me figure out how to sooth her. Anything I could do to make things easier for her was like a life time accomplishment award. Her breathing became steady and deep within minutes; she looked like an innocent kid, one that hadn't been exposed to any of the harsh realities of life yet. I couldn't help but smile to myself as the girl slept with her head on my shoulder, soundly and soundlessly. Peacefully. A feeling that overwhelmed me too for the first time in ages.

"This surprise I think you'll like."

**Sigh, no new Nikita episodes until April…Hope this story will feed your cravings until it comes back.**


	4. North

**Chapter Four**

_**Alex**_

We started walking down the abandoned road when the sun was just rising. Now, it was midday and it felt like we'd gone in one gigantic circle. Everything started looking the same. We couldn't go to the toll gates, chances were that Division turned us into a pair of criminals and sent word to every officer in America. We would have to jump the fence and try not to get caught. If we did, we'd have to run and hide. We reached the high fence after an hour; I swallowed hard, barbed wire spiralled across the top of the chain link. Nikita looked over at me "You ready?" She asked and I nodded, swallowing again. We backed up a couple steps, rocked onto our heels and then launched forward. With a forcefully jump, we both managed to get halfway up the fence. The biting cold wind ripped at my face as I climbed, making my eyes water. "Hurry up Alex!" Nikita called, already at the top and carefully working her way under the barbed water.

"I'm trying!" I panted, heaving myself up higher and higher but my muscles quivered under the sudden physical demand. I wrapped my hand around the top of the fence and then lifted the other when I heard the sirens. My jacket snagged on the barbed wire. I looked out at the gates and then back at Nikita. The tall woman instantly began scaling the fence again effortlessly, a hunting knife in her mouth. I tried to push myself over the side, only to catch myself on the sharp wires even more. My heart hammered in my ears. I pushed harder as great, big SUV's started rolling out. "Nikita!" I cried desperately.

"Hold on Alex." She ordered, her voice controlled, commanding. My fingers clenched around the pole as a burst of cold air whipped across my back and feathers floated down around me. Nikita sliced open the jacket down the back. She tore the left half off me and was reaching for the second when the cars started closing in. She paused, and stared at the cars and then back to me. She shoved the right off me and, with a violent shove, heaved me over the side of the fence. Not expecting the sudden push, I fell to the ground on my side, the air whooshing from my lungs in a quick puff. Nikita's feet hit the ground next as the cars got close enough that I could hear the roar of the engine. "Alex." Her finger tips just grazed my forehead. I looked up, started at the slight contact, that she wasn't pulling me up and running.

"Nikita!" I gasped, gaping at her through the fence "what are you doing! Get back over here!" she shook her head and passed a small keychain through one of the small diamonds.

"We won't make it unless we've got a diversion, unless you've got a diversion." I grabbed the trinket carefully, it was a badge attached to a chain, law enforcement. A buffalo head surrounded by a wreath and topped with a crown, 'Royal Canadian Mounted Police' was written in the banner across the bottom. "I want you to run Alex, like when Division was chasing you through the city."

"Nikita..!"

"Don't fight the law enforcement. If anyone shows up, in a police uniform and cars or red suits, riding boots and horses, show them that." She pointed to the badge clenched in my hand. "If they confront you, I want you to yell out who you are and walk towards the man in charge; he'll be easy to spot. No matter how many guns they have or how many times they tell you to stop, you walk forward towards the Corporal Sergeant Major. They won't shoot you if you move slowly with your hands in the air. You have to take off your blouse so you're in your tank top, show them you don't have a bomb." Her fingers brushed my cheek. "Keep running Alex, they'll help you once you show that to them. I'll meet you at my contact's place."

"Nikita" I said as she went to turn away from me and face the men pointing guns at her. She looked back "You WILL meet me there. Alright?" she smiled slightly and looked over her shoulder briefly then to me again.

"Run Alex. Now." I heaved myself to my feet and threw forward, launching into a full blown sprint across the concrete. Gun shots rang out behind me. Feathers floated off of my shirt as I pushed myself harder and faster, my legs burning, begging me to slow down. To stop. I went faster.

My legs trembled before giving out right as I reached what seemed to be a wide, green field. I panted hard and clenched my teeth against the wave of nausea that filled me. I'd been running without resting for over an hour. My throat was searing and my legs and arms trembled as I continued to force myself onwards, crawling on my hands and knees. The soft grass under my hands was inviting and soothed my scraped palms I'd gotten from tripping a couple times. I gave up after moving a foot or two and laid down, curling my kneels to my chest. It was freezing and my body was mostly numb but screamed with dull agony. Skin stung and the sun was starting to set. I blinked a couple times, silhouettes rose on the horizon. I blinked more and struggled to push myself to my feet as the sound I'd been hoping for reached my ears; thundering horses. Five horses and their riders galloped towards me, I had to fight the urge to run. Nikita had told me to stay, that these people would help me. "Stay on the ground!" someone yelled, the clicking of rifles enforced their words.

"Are you alright?" someone asked, a different voice. I tried to force my muscles to listen to my commands as I pushed myself up to my feet and clenched the badge in my aching fingers. I staggered forward slowly, off balance as more voices started yelling

"Stay down!"

"Don't move!"

I kept walking, unbuttoning my blouse as I went, just as Nikita had told me to do. I let it slide down my arms and to the ground, still walking forward. A fresh chill quaked up my spine as the cold air found new skin to freeze. "Who are you?" a female voice asked quietly and I cleared my throat trying to find my voice.

"My name is Alexandra Udinov, I'm the daughter of Nicholai Udinov." The female officer flung herself off the horse with grace and walked towards me. She looked at me carefully then reached for the badge in my hand. I didn't try to fight her. Examining it for a second, the woman, and everything else seemed to slow down, the hostile feeling in the air slowly ebbed away.

"Lower your weapons!" she ordered and the others did as they were told. She took off her bright red jacket and helped me put my arms through the holes. Underneath she wore nothing but a tank top, much like I was. The cold didn't seem to have the same affect on her that it did on me.

"I need to see the Corporal...the Corporal..." I racked my brain for the words I was looking for. But, much like everything else, my mind seemed to be frozen.

"The Corporal Sergeant Major?" I nodded, beginning to shiver violently inside the already warm jacket. "He's not here with us right now, we're just doing the last patrol of this field for the night. You're lucky that you're alright, this place is crawling with thugs at this time of night." She chuckled a little bit "WE'RE lucky you're alright, if Nikita had gotten you back all beat up, there's no telling how many heads would roll." I stared at her blankly, they knew Nikita? "Come on, we'll take you to him right now. Get you some new cloths and a warm bed while we're at it." She helped me onto the horse, sat behind me with one arm around my waist to keep me on the horse in case I passed out or was too weak to hold on. I was grateful. Finally, I was away from Division, somewhere where they couldn't get to me. But, as the horses galloped at a high speed towards where ever it was they were taking me, I couldn't help but wonder. I looked up at the star-filled night sky.

_Where are you Nikita?_


	5. Regrets and Future Hopes

**Thought of the Day: There's a team Nikalex out there right? If not...there should be.**

**Chapter Five**

_**Nikita**_

"Could've bought me a drink first" I sighed as I was frisked before being brought into the holding centre for criminals and other delinquents who tried to cross the border and got caught on the American side. I got special treatment due Division setting me and Alex up to look like we were weapons dealers selling WMDs to the Russians. Turning us from just criminals to traitors as well. Kind of funny in a juvenile way, I turned traitor to Division, Alex was always a traitor to Division and now Percy's thrown a temper tantrum and wanted the rest of the world to see us as traitors too. Well played Percy. No matter though, I'd just have to kick his ass three times harder now than I was going to when he sent out the kill order for Alex.

I, luckily, figured out a way to disable the tracker/kill chip so they couldn't activate it and eliminate her.

In the gun fight I'd gotten grazed a couple times before getting shot just below my shoulder. It forced me to drop my gun but not before I'd taken out a couple of their guys too. Not killed them, just taken them down. Then, when they tried to take me down via tackling me, I fought them hand to hand. Even with my shoulder screaming bloody murder, I was able to break one guy's wrist, another's nose and bruise some of the other's ribs and faces. I was sure one of them wouldn't be seeing out of his right eye for a week or two. My wound hurt like hell but it was a through and through, nothing too serious. Alex would be pissed though. I smiled slightly at the thought. Then I stopped.

_Alex. _

Did she make it out alright? Did the RCMP find her? Did the local PD find her? Did she get hurt? I shook my head. I couldn't worry about that now. I'd get myself all in a tizzy and make mistakes. Alex could take care of herself. I trained her to.

Her father trained her to.

"Keep movin' traitor." The particularly angry guard growled, shoving me forward down the large corridor of cells closed with iron bars. The men howled like dogs as I was dragged past them, the women simply glared or made catcalls. I walked on, unfazed by the disapproving and objectifying yelps. Then I was shoved roughly into the empty cell on the far right and sealed in immediately.

"I don't suppose it'd be too much trouble for you to unlock these cuffs?" the exit door slammed shut "Guess it is." I reached for the bobby pin hooked onto the waist of my pants and quickly began picking the lock to my restraints. I managed to get them off in roughly eighteen seconds. "New record."

"That's a nice trick, chica" smirked the convict in the cell next to me, a Spanish kid with tattoos covering his arms and chest, buzz cut and pencil moustache. "A pretty girl like you must have other...talents. Eh, Bonita?" I narrowed my eyes at him and his lopsided grin. He made me want to puke. His cocky, 'I own you' attitude made me want to punch his face in. I dropped the handcuffs to the ground. He glanced down to his crotch and back at me. I walked towards the bars that separated us and he nodded slightly, like I was agreeing to give him what he wanted. I reached through the bars and grasped his muscle shirt by the collar and wrenched him forward. His head hit the iron barrier with a thud. Pulling harder on his shirt, I pinned him to the bars.

"Speak to me again, you little prick, and I'll castrate you. Understood?" he groaned in response, partly of pain, partly of my threat of removing his manhood. I pushed him back and ripped him forward again when he didn't answer. "I said understood?" He nodded vigorously

"Si, si!" I shoved him back and sat down on the bed. This was going to be a long day.

I stared at the ceiling for what seemed like days. He should've been here by now. The door to my cell slid open. "Come on" the same guard from earlier grumbled "you get your phone call now." He didn't seem to notice that I'd broken out of my handcuffs. I hopped off the bed and strode ahead of him, towards the payphone which was in the main room of this little hellhole. I picked up the payphone and dialled a number I'd memorized a long time ago. I waited and worried. What if no one picked up? What if they did pick up and told me Alex was dead? What if—

"RCMP, Officer Jameson speaking, how may I assist you?"

Damn.

"Peter."

"Well hello there Nikita" this man almost made me as sick as the perverted kid in the other room. "How are you this fine evening?" his snide, sadistic voice made my blood boil.

"one of the patrols should've found a girl earlier, she's—"

"Alexandra Udinov. Yeah, we found her." I let out a slow breath of air, relief washing over me like a tidal wave. "Her body." My heart stopped.

"What?"

"Yeah, it was all mangled too. Looked like a grizzly had taken a go at her." The tone of his voice was even more sadistic than usual. I smashed the phone against the wall hard enough the heavy plastic cracked.

"Don't you lie to me you sick bastard!" I snarled into the mouth piece. "I want to speak to Vasily."

"The Serge?" I waited "Nope, not gonna happen Nikita." He hung up on me. I fought the urge to destroy the phone even more and set it back down on the receiver and then walked back to my cell, gritting my teeth the entire time.

The cell door opened again on my second day in lock down. They didn't bring me food like the rest of the prisoners got. Told me traitors to America didn't disserve to eat in America. I told them where to shove it and that I wasn't a traitor. What good that did me.

It didn't matter anyway. I wasn't hungry. I was worried. I worried about how I'd get out of here, when and if Vasily would get here but, of course, I was mostly worried about Alex. I hadn't seen her in a day, almost two. She was so scared right now, my disappearance would only make it harder on her. I should've used my only phone call for her. I should have called the cell phone I gave her. But I couldn't have. I put in the pocket in her jacket, the one I sliced in half and threw in all different directions trying to free her from the barbed wire. I thumped my head back against the wall. This wasn't going at all like I'd planned. I wanted her out before this happened. We could've escaped somewhere peaceful and figured out a way to take Percy and his mercs down from the outside, out of dangers path. That's all I wanted for Alex. To help her avenge her families death and then give her a normal life, one she'd always wanted. She could settle down and start a family. Who knows, maybe I could be Aunt Nikita. I could be the kind of family member who's always around, always helping out, babysitting, that sort of thing. Or maybe just visit from time to time, if she still wanted me to be in her life if we ever got to that point. If we survived this.

A tall, dark haired man stood behind the officer who guarded the door, someone I truly didn't want to see. He appraised me with his usual cold stare, hands folded behind his back like a good soldier. I knew why he was here, coming to pick up Division's baggage as usual. The guard grabbed my bad arm roughly and I bit back my instinct to beat the living daylights out of him. The man nodded to me as I was led down the hall, shoved continuously and without need.

"Nikita."

"Michael."


	6. Dead Times Two

**Chapter Six**

_**Alex**_

I was blind. I was so furious, so enraged that, once hit hand touched my forearm and my fists started flying, there was no way to stop them. The officer went down hard, falling back into the desk and then trying to block the next swing I threw. My fist hit his open hand and my other hand hit him flat in the forehead. He grabbed my arm and I kicked him in the side. He grabbed both arms and I head butted him. There was nothing he could do to stop me from killing him. My fist contacted his ribs then his gut, forcing him to keel over. I kicked him into the water cooler so hard the tank tipped over and water gushed across the floor. Still, I didn't hesitate to strike again as he picked himself off the ground. I kneeled him in the chest and smashed the heel of my palm under his chin. The pencil pushers around us were huddled against the walls furthest from me and my victim. I had no interest in them; I just wanted the man in front of me on his knees, begging me for his life. Predatorily instinct kicked in once he tried to victimize me, once he tried to scare me and tell me I couldn't hit a cop. That was when I hit him the first time.

He grabbed my foot as it nearly contacted his head and twisted it, flipping me forward. I rolled when I hit the ground and twisted around, sprinting head long towards him. I knew that Officer Grant, the woman who'd helped me when they found me, and her squad were heading up at that moment. But that didn't matter. All that mattered at that moment in time, was the ten minutes it would take her to get here. And, in that time, I planned on making Officer Jameson regret everything he'd said to me.

"_Looks like you're lover isn't coming back for you." He said as I passed him, dressed in some left over orders the department had from the last shipping, a pair of sweatpants and T-shirt with the RCMP's crest over my heart. I paused, unsure if he was talking to me or not. He looked at me, but said nothing. The glint in his blue eyes was unkind, harsh. His black hair was spiked back, giving him a sort of...douchey look. I was surprised his collar wasn't popped like a frat boy._

"_Um...excuse me?" I asked, not totally knowing how to respond to a declaration like that._

"_Nikita. The chick who sent you over the border and then let you run all over hell's acres and nearly die in the process." _

"_Nikita is NOT a chick." I snapped. The way he'd used that word was just so degrading, ESPECIALLY when he used it talking about Nikita. "And what the hell are you talking about?" the people around me doing paper work glanced up nervously, some curiously. _

"_From what I heard from a phone call I got, she skipped out." My heart missed a beat. A momentary pain filled me so completely at that very moment that, if I hadn't been as well trained as I was to keep composure, I would've fallen. Shattered into a million pieces. Nikita wouldn't do that to me. She wouldn't promise me that she'd take care of me, take me some place safe and then skip out. I stepped forward towards him, he mimicked my move. _

"_Shut up."_

"_I'm only speaking the truth, little girl. She only sent you here because she didn't want you anymore, her partner, her 'friend.' Everyone is only an asset to Nikita until they're a liability to Nikita. Get what I'm saying? She's not coming back for you." I clenched my fists at my side._

"_What the hell is your problem!" I shoved him hard enough to make him stagger back a few steps. _

"_Whoa ho! You've got some fire in you now don'cha!" he looked down at my clenched fists "put those away, kid." He reached for my forearm "you can't hit an officer of the—" My fist connected solidly with his jaw. That's when I lost control._

I slammed him up against the wall so hard his head snapped back against the drywall, cracking it. I punched him again and again and threw him to the ground, sending him skidding across the polished wood. I advanced towards him when strong arms wrapped around me and Officer Grant pulled me back. "Alex, Alex calm down!" I struggled against her grasp, fighting to break free. To break HIM. "Alex, control yourself!" she used a tone that was familiar to me, one that Nikita used when she was teaching me the proper way to fight. It was like Grant had found my off switch. I stopped struggling against her and went limp, allowing her to support my weight and hold me up. Jameson was bleeding all over the place. I hadn't seen the blood until just now, when I could focus on anything other than where I could hit him to hurt/kill him the fastest. Or slowest. Grant slowly helped me away from the people trying to patch Jameson up and towards the couch on the other end of the room. I was shaking now, shocked by my sudden burst of rage. Slowly, Grant lowered me down on the soft cushions and brought me a cup of coffee.

"I...I'm sorry" I whispered "I don't know what...I didn't mean to..."

"It's alright Alex. I know how Jameson is; maybe it's a good thing that you wailed on him like that. Maybe now he'll learn his lesson about pushing people too hard." I nodded slightly and sipped the coffee. "Do you want to try and sleep a little bit? Maybe see if you can rest?" I shook my head and wiped my nose, I suddenly felt jumpy, aggravated.

"I just...I just need to..." She took the coffee from me and set it on the small table.

"There's a gym down the hall, heavy bags are on the left side."

"It's been three days, Grant" I said, looking at the blonde woman. I'd been staying at the Department twenty four hours a day, having nowhere else to go. One or two officers would stay with me, taking shifts every couple hours. They wanted to ensure I was safe until Nikita arrived. IF she arrived. "What if the people we've been running from get her?"

"Division won't get her, Alex." I blinked once. How much did she know? "No one here would let that happen."

"How do you know about Division?"I asked carefully and she sighed

"Let's just say they've caused a lot of trouble for us over the years." She patted my cheek. "Go on, it'll be easier for you to function once you've gotten your anger out of your system." She stood up and walked away from me, towards Jameson who glared at me out of his good eye. I looked at my still bandaged hand and winced, I'd most likely ripped the stitches. I exhaled heavily and looked up at the ceiling, closed my eyes.

_Nikita, if you die on me...I'm going to kill you._


	7. The Udinovs

**Chapter Seven**

_**Nikita**_

"So what, Michael?" I asked from where I sat on the chair as he signed the paper work. My hands were cuffed and connected to the cuffs around my legs and the collar around my neck. The collar chafed and the metal aggravated my skin, making me fidget and twitch as I fought the urge to itch or to try and break out of the restraints. I didn't do well when I was locked down like this. I felt like a caged animal, trapped. I worked to slow my heart rate and unclench my fists. "You're just going to drag me out of the barn and straight to the slaughter house?" I looked up at him, he paid no attention to me. Just kept scribbling away on the paper. "You know I could kill you before we get back to Division." I murmured and he slammed the pen down on the clipboard. That hit a nerve.

"Shut the hell up Nikita. You won't kill me and we both know it." He growled and I stood up, equally as furious.

"That's where you're wrong Michael, because if anyone tries to harm Alex the way you have, I'll tear them to shreds piece by piece with my bare hands." I pulled hard once on the chain connected to my feet.

"What makes Alex your responsibility Nikita? You've already turned her into a traitor to her country, what more can you do?"

"This isn't her country, Michael!" I snapped back, pulling on the chain again, harder this time. "She's pure blood Russian Royalty! She's never been an American!"

"We're going to find her Nikita. You can't stop Percy."

"No. The day I pulled her from the fire, the fire YOU and your team started, was the day she became my responsibility. The day I swore she wouldn't be hurt by anyone if I could stop it! If Percy gets so much as a hundred mile radius of her I swear to God I will burn him alive."

"Are you that desperate to have a family that you'd 'adopt' a presumably dead Russian heiress?"

"Alex's parents died at by your hand, Michael." He looked away from me and to the floor. "I saved her when she was thirteen and again from that crack smoking punk and his disgusting buddies when she was sixteen. I got her clean, I made up for all the years I wasn't there for her. When NO one was there for her. And I will be DAMNED if you or Percy or Amanda ever lay a hand on her again!"

"Alex is Division property, Nikita. She's—"

"Michael." A loud, gruff voice said calmly. We both stopped and turned to see a burly man with broad shoulders, dark brown hair and icy blue eyes walking down the corridor towards us. I smiled slightly as my old friend nodded to me warmly. "Nikita, how are you?" I pulled on the chains again

"been better."

"Ah, we'll take care of that right away, I assure you." Michael looked conflicted and flabbergasted as Vasily simply grabbed the key off the desk and moved it towards my hand cuffs.

"Excuse me Sergeant." Michael took a half step forward "You can't just take her from here! She's already been signed for and is now the property of the United States." The large man looked at him then back to me, an expression of mock surprise on his face.

"Oh, really?" he walked over to the desk "these papers?" Michael nodded

"Yes, those papers now—" Vasily ripped the papers straight down the middle.

"Oops." He dropped them to the recycling bin. Michael stared at the blue bin, mouth gaping. "Sorry about that Michael, but don't worry. I'm sure you can fill out another one before I get the chance to sign these" he pulled neatly folded forms out from his blazer jacket "already filled out documents." Her unfolded the papers and signed his name quickly at the bottom of the sheet then handed it to the clerk, who filed them absent mindedly. "too late" he grinned smugly at the Division agent and turned back to me. He slipped the key into the lock around my wrists then handed me the key and worded at undoing the collar around my neck.

"She was on US soil when we got her! You can't do that!"

"I just did." I unlocked my ankles and bit back a groan of relief. It was like I could breathe again. I rolled my neck and tossed Michael the chains. "Say hello to Percy for me." There was a sharp edge in the giant of a man's eyes and voice that made even Michael cringe like a child being scorned. With a little goodbye wave with my fingers, I linked my arm through Vasily's and we started down the long corridor. "Are you planning that we tell Alexandra when we get there?" he asked me softly, not turning to look at me. I looked down.

"Alex deserves to know, she's all alone Vasily. She has no one. I thought you and Katina and Alicia would be good for her."

"From what I heard she's had you for the past couple years." He glanced down at me this time and then straight forward again. "And, from the passion in your voice when you threatened Michael, I'd say you two have grown close."

"Maybe, but a family tie is something she needs more than a good friend."

"You think far too little of yourself, Nikita."

I shoved open the doors of the department and stormed in "Where is she?" Gale Grant didn't look up from her desk

"Hey Nik, nice to see you too." I opened my mouth but she cut me off "Alex is fine, can't say the same for Jameson but we got her a couple days ago, she hasn't left the department since then and Jasmine and I have been staying here pulling all nighters since she arrived. She's in the fitness centre" all this information was thrown at me as I strode past the desks, everyone moving to get around me. I caught a glimpse of Jameson sitting by the fax machine talking with someone. I wasn't expecting—but not totally surprised—Alex had beat him up that badly. The water cooler was dented and had an 'out of order' sign taped to it. The drywall looked dented and pieces had been gouged out. I felt a swell of pride and sadness choking my heart. "Last door on the left!" Gale called after me. I pushed the door open.

"Alex" I said, stepping across the large red mat and towards the girl beating the living daylights out of a heavy bag without gloves on. "Alex, thank god you're—" she turned around before I could put my hand on her shoulder and swung. I flung my head back to dodge her fist. Not the welcome I was expecting. She swung again and I blocked it with my good arm. She landed a kick to the centre of my chest when I moved to protect my shot arm and threw me back onto the mat, on my damaged limb. "God damn! Alex, what the hell was that about!"

"You promised me you wouldn't be long!" she yelled at me, fists clenched at her sides, the stitched one wrapped in medical tape.

"I never said—"

"Nikita!" she snarled, shutting me up "That guy in there, Jameson or whatever the hell his name is, I beat the living daylights out of him because of you!"

"I know."

"No! You DON'T know! He told me you were never coming back! That you were only using me until I was a liability and then you'd leave me!"

"Alex, if I was going to get rid of you the moment you started making things complicated don't you think I would've done it a long, long time ago?" She dropped to her knees beside me "I would never leave you, Alex. Not again. Not for Division, not for anything or anyone." I pushed the scattered locks of hair from her face. She nodded slowly and sniffed once.

"So where were you?"

"A delinquent holding cell, Division turned us into WMD dealers selling to the Russians from inside the United States."

"So we're traitors."

"Presumably."

"That's awesome."

"Tell me about it."

"Did anyone from Division turn up?"

"Michael."

"Then how did you get here?" The doors to the training room opened and a sixteen-year-old girl peeked her head inside, short, dirty blonde hair fell to one side of her pale face. She grinned when she saw me and turned her head back to the hall.

"DAD! I FOUND THEM!" she howled and walked in, then ran full blast at me. She leapt through the air and hit me just before hitting the ground. We rolled over a couple times before coming to a complete stop side by side. The air was forced from my lungs on impact and I sprawled on the ground dazedly, just staring up at the ceiling. "Hiya Nikita" she grinned, her big blue eyes sparking with mischief.

"Hey Kitty." I coughed, trying to catch my breath. My arm was bleeding again, I was sure of it. Alex looked severely confused by the sudden attack. Vasily entered the room next, still in a suit.

"Hello again Nikita." He said, rolling his eyes when I waved at him weakly and let my arm flop back down. Vasily turned to Alex next and, in flawless transition, switched from English to Russian. "Hello to you too Alexandra." Alex tensed and, in an effort to calm her down, I propped myself up onto my elbows and also spoke in Russian.

"It's alright Alex, he's the man who got me out of Division's grasp. Alexandra Udinov, meet Vasily Udinov younger brother to Nicholai Udinov, and his first born daughter, Katina Udinov. You're family."

"Come" Vasily said in English, extending his hand towards my quote/un-quote student. "we've much to discuss."


	8. HairChewers, KittyKats and Assassins

**Chapter Eight**

_**Alex**_

Out of all things I couldn't have expected to happen in my entire life, this is so high off the scale I don't even think there's a number for it. I have family members ALIVE. I've got a baby cousin Alicia who's almost six months, a sixteen-year-old cousin Katrina (or Kitty/Kit, as everyone else seems to call her) and my uncle Vasily. It was difficult at first...trusting someone other than Nikita. But after a day in their house, seeing how easily Nikita fit in and how much of a goof they all are together, it gave me a strange kind of hope that I'd be able to have a fun family; that maybe I could have a family that wasn't all business all the time.

Nikita was helping out with breakfast the morning after we'd arrived, feeding Alicia while Vasily got ready for work. Kitty was typing away on her laptop, probably doing something she wasn't supposed to be considering the fact that Nikita slapped the back of her spiky blonde head as she passed. "I asked you to get into their network, not screw around in Berkhoff's things. You can't let him know you were there." I nearly spat out my coffee.

"BERKOFF!" everyone, including Alicia in her booster seat, looked at me like I'd just said I was the Queen of the Mole People.

"Uh, doy, Alex." Kitty muttered then went back to what she was doing.

"Why are you messing around in there in the first place!"

"Ask the boss lady, I just follow orders like a good little dog." she muttered and jabbed a finger over her shoulder at Nikita. The tall woman mixed baby food with a tiny spoon as she came back.

"Alex, we just need to keep an eye on what Division is doing. Planting a small tracker in the system and then planting a decoy tracker will let us know what Percy's having Berkoff do." Kit was a kid genius. Literally. She was sixteen and already finished her first term at a university somewhere nearby. She spoke nearly seven languages fluently, knew some martial arts skills but was an amazingly gifted hacker. Even mocked Berkoff. She could bypass his 'unpassable' fire wall in as little as half an hour, fifteen minutes on a good day. I leaned back in my chair and sipped my coffee.

"I still can't believe you had a sixteen-year-old build the shell program. No wonder Berkoff found it."

"I was fourteen, Thank you very much. Nikita asked me to construct it when you said you wanted to go into Division as a mole." She glanced up at me over the screen of her brilliant red laptop "So, you can talk smack all you want, but without me you would've been brain washed by that psycho Amanda." She shivered and shook it off. Nikita cleared her throat from the head of the table where she was trying to get Alicia to eat. "Not that Nikita didn't prepare you in the art of mental kung fu that is." She said, covering her ass.

"Better." My sensei confirmed and lifted my baby cousin from her booster seat. "Alex, would you mind holding her for a second? I just need to go grab her some of those cookie things she likes." I could handle being at gun point, I could handle bomb diffusions...but a baby...let's just say I'd rather diffuse a bomb AT gun point. But, nevertheless, the tiny poop machine was placed in my lap. She stared at me with the biggest, most confused looking brown eyes I'd ever seen.

"Uh...hi Alicia?" She smiled big and toothlessly before letting out a giggly laugh and yanking hard on my hair. "Ow! Hey! I still need that you know!" she pulled again and then put it in her mouth, chewing on it. "Aw ew! Nikita! Alicia's eating my hair!" I yelled for her help to which she responded with

"Alex, you're ten times her size. Be a big girl and get it out yourself. She's not going to pull a gun on you."

"You don't know that."

"Wimp" Kit muttered, continuing to type as I pulled the soggy piece of hair from Alicia mouth. "Alright Nikiita, the tracker is up and running, securely lodged between one of the gaps in Berkoff's 'gapless' defence systems. What a cocky son of a-."

"Kit..!" Nikita warned her from the kitchen

"It's done, anyway."

I picked up Alicia carefully the way Nikita had a few seconds before. Her tiny fingers wrapped around the collar of my shirt. And, of course, she put it in her mouth. "Nikita! She's trying to eat my shirt!"

"Come on lazy ass." A pillow smacked me in the face with an audible thwap. "We're going grocery shopping." Kit stood across the room from where I was napping on the couch, in baggy track pants and a grey, faux leather jacket. Her hair was particularly spiky, sticking out where her hair ended in random directions.

"Shut up twerp." I muttered rubbed my eyes. She rolled hers. "Who else is going?"

"We all are; Nikita, Pops, Ali, you and me. A family bonding trip. Fun stuff." And she walked out the door and towards the big truck parked in the driveway.

"Family bonding, goody."

"You guys take care of the dry foods and we'll take care of all the milk and stuff, alright?" Nikita said, handing us the list. By 'us' I mean Katina and I. Alicia, attached to Nikita via a baby sling, Nikita and Vasily were team A while we were team B.

"Whatever you say, boss lady." Kitty linked her arm through mine. "Come on, we can't let them finish their list before we do."As we walked, I couldn't help but smile. I'd never done something like this before. I never got to play with other kids or go shopping with friends...not that I like shopping very much but I still never got to do it. I also didn't know Kit and Alicia and Vasily existed until a day or two ago. She paused for a second, waited until I was in front of her then jumped on my back, hooking her legs on my hips and arms around my neck. "Hey!" I growled and she held on tighter as I thrashed in the aisle, trying to get her off.

"Relax Spazz! I'm not attacking you; it's called a piggy-back-ride." I stopped and smirked again, another new experience. I hooked my arms under her legs and started down to the cereal aisle.

Kitty and Nikita were wrestling in the living room...AGAIN. It seemed that whenever there was time to wind down, those two just started fighting. Not with the intent to kill each other, more like wrestling you'd do with a sibling...mind you, with siblings I'd imagine the intent to kill would sometimes be added into the mix. I lounged on the couch with Alicia situated in the crook of my knee, safely trapped in a small area between my legs and the couch, watching her older sister and her 'Aunt Niki' duke it out.

Kit would lunge and Nikita would simply glide out of the way, offering either a tip or a playful taunt. She'd continue to do that time and time again until Kit launched into full throttle, like she did after the second time. That's when it became apparent that they called her 'Kitty' for more of a reason than a nickname.

Nikita grabbed her foot as she kicked and twisted it, flipping her around and throwing her forward. Kit rolled forward when she hit the ground and then shot into a backwards roll, using her hands to push herself from the ground, landing a kick with both feet into Nikita's stomach. The older woman staggered back and Kit scrambled forward, crouching down very cat-like. With a cocky smirk, Kit leapt through the air directly at Nikita, covering a distance of over six feet and hitting the wall with her face as Nikita stepped to the side.

"oooooooh..." the sixteen-year-old groaned, clutching her face which made a loud thump and crack as it hit the drywall. "That smarts" I applauded and Alicia, seeing my excitement, giggled and clumsily smacked her pudgy hands together. Nikita bowed to us before helping Kit off the floor. Blood streamed from her nose like a waterfall. "Cheater." She grumbled, Nikita laughed

"Well, if you had thought out your move instead just going, you're face would be a whole lot happier right now." She led the bloodied girl towards the kitchen, the crimson liquid had already begun trailing down her arms. "And you said Berkoff was cocky." The tap turned on.

"Don't compare me to him!"

"Shut up and rinse." I smiled to myself and looked over at Alicia, who was still grinning like a moron. I reached down and picked her up, swivelled and sat her on my stomach as I lay on my back.

"You know, you kind of adorable for a hair-chewer." I murmured and poked her nose. She giggled. I looked up at the ceiling as more arguing came from the kitchen. I sighed exaggeratedly and looked back down at her "Some family, eh?" she grinned toothlessly, gurbled something I doubt anyone could understand and grabbed my nose in both hands.

Some family indeed.


	9. So it Begins

**Chapter Nine**

_**Nikita**_

"Alex" I whispered softly to the girl sleeping on the couch with Alicia, also asleep, on her chest. She was drenched in sweat, the small amount of makeup she'd worn was now a semi-circle around the bottom of her eyes. She blinked her eyes open slowly; her pupils were dilated almost completely, her hair was soaked at the roots. I put my hand to her head gently and felt a jolt of fear flash through my body. I whipped around, my heart pounding so hard I thought it'd punch a hole through my ribs. "Katrina!" There was only a second of silence before the sixteen-year-old's heavy footsteps thumped through the house from upstairs. I only called her by her real name when something was wrong. And something was very, very wrong. Alex's skin was burning; a fever of probably one-hundred-and-three if not over. I scooped the infant up just as both Vasily and Katrina both entered. "Katrina, go start the bath tub up with luke warm water, not cold but not too hot either. We need to cool Alex down." The spiky blonde took off through the house, disappearing in the bathroom at the end of the hall. I heard the water pounding through the pipes immediately. "Vasily, take Alicia." I handed the baby, who gave a wail of disapproval from being pulled from Alex's warm body, off to her father. The large man pulled the baby close to his muscled chest.

"I'll carry Alex"

"I got her!" I snapped, perhaps a bit too harshly. "No, I got her, you take care of Alicia, get her some food and then put her to bed." I slip my hands under Alex slowly. Her body was limp, unmoving other than the small rasps of her breath. _ Too weak, _the thought echoed through my head, _she's too weak to do anything. _With one steady pull, I lifted her carefully. Her arms went around my shoulders slowly, her forehead resting against the side of my neck. "It's alright Alex" I whispered, turn my head so I spoke into her ear "You're alright." She nodded her head as I turned down the hall. "You got the bath ready Kat?" I came in just as she shut off the tap. The bath was filled just enough that it'd cover Alex's body. "Good job."

"She's gonna be fine...right?" I just looked up into the concerned blue eyes as I knelt down beside the porcelain. I motion with my head to the door.

"Go help your father with your sister. Shut the door after yourself." She hesitated briefly before doing what I told her to do. "Alex, this is going to feel kind of cold, but it'll help you in the long run. I promise." She nodded again and slowly, I lowered her into the water. Her arms tightened around my neck as the shock of the sudden temperature change woke her up completely. "Shhh..." I hushed her as she whimpered "You're fine Alex, I'm right here." She pressed her head more firmly into my neck while I put her in completely. "I'm right here."

"Shift change?" I murmured quietly, opening the bathroom door. Vasily sat cross legged beside the toilet with Alex curled up in his lap. His massive shoulders barely fit into the small space against the counter. It'd been three hours...maybe five; I'd lost count. After I'd gotten her out of the bath, Alex threw herself to the toilet as soon as her feet hit the ground. I pulled her hair back and murmured soft words, my free hand gently rubbing her back. Vasily and I had changed in and out since then. I didn't want to move, I didn't want to leave her out of my sight for too long, but he reminded me that she WAS his niece, that he'd take care of her.

"I can't feel my legs" he muttered, pushing a wet lock of hair from her cheek. I walked in and sat opposite from him. My movements woke Alex enough that she raised her head slightly.

"It's just me Alex" I said softly in Russian, converting back to her native language seemed to sooth her more than English. She didn't respond, simply dragged her body so her head rested on my thigh and the rest of her body was draped across both Vasily and my lap. Her fingers clenched around my pant leg. I gently ran my fingers through her hair as she shifted between unconsciousness and consciousness. "I'm sorry about your wife" I murmured, my attention focused completely on Alex. Then I looked up "Alicia was a good woman. The baby looks just like her." He smiled sadly

"She does, doesn't she?" Vasily had moved to Canada the year Alex was born, in nineteen-ninety-two. He was at least twenty years younger than his older brother, Nicolai, when he met a RCMP officer, Officer Alicia Peck, in Vancouver. Katrina Udinov was born three years after, Alicia Udinov Junior was born nineteen years after. I'd found them after I pulled Alex from the fire.

"Does Katrina know..."

"Yes, she understood when she was younger that, if anything were to happen to Alexandra, she would be the next in line for the empire. Luckily, Alex is alive. Katrina won't need to take her place." Vasily didn't like the empire his brother built with the help of their father and moved away to escape it all, have a normal life, a normal family. But when word had reached him that Alexandra and the rest of her family died in the fire, he knew it was up to him to not only take over but, more importantly, to train his first born daughter to be the heir. That's when he started forcing Kat to learn other languages and everything else that came with being an Udinov.

"What time is it?" Vasily asked me, watching Alex's features as she dreamt.

"Nearly four in the morning when I came in." I breathed, Alex had managed, with some slight assistance from me, to pull her body completely into my lap, her head resting under my chin. "Could you go get a blanket? Maybe go check on the other two, make sure they're ok." He nodded and stood up, stiffly stumbling out of the bathroom. The door shutting woke her up.

"Nikita?" she whispered but didn't move a muscle.

"Hey"

"Hi."

"How are you feeling?" I asked, rubbing her back gently.

"Like someone's grabbed my stomach and is trying to pull it out my throat."

"That's a pleasant thought" I snorted, trying to keep her as warm as possible until Vasily got the blanket.

"You're not the one going through it."

"Irue. So...how do you like your family?" I asked, looking down at her. Alex's eyes were still closed, head tilted into me, shivering.

"Alicia's alright...when she's not trying to eat everything. Katrina's...well, Katrina. And Vasily's cool, actually. He showed me how to throw a baseball yesterday."

"oh yeah? You any good?" she smiled

"Not really. He says I've got no control."

"You? No control?" she nudged me with her head, something I'm sure would've been a punch if she could've mustered the strength to do so.

The door opened and in came Kat with a thick wool blanket and a glass of a golden coloured liquid. "Dad said you wanted a blanket. I figured she could use a glass of ginger ale, seeing as she can't keep anything down and probably needs something to get rid of the flavour of...well, vomit." The teenager knelt in front of us and wrapped the blanket over Alex, hooking it behind my shoulders to keep it in place. Then she lifted the glass to Alex's lips and let the liquid just touch them so she'd know it was there. "Easy Alex" she murmured as the girl in my lap raised her hands outside the blanket to hold the cup. Kat didn't let go as Alex tilted the drink back, taking small sips at a time. "Not too much." She pulled the glass away and sat it down beside me. Alex moved closer to me.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I was feeling sick earlier...I should've told you. I didn't mean to scare you like that..." her voice was raspy and small, she sounded exhausted.

"Yeah, you probably should have." I murmured, kissing the top of her head. "But I'm just glad you're talking again at least."

"This is bad...isn't it?" I hesitated. She'd know if I lied, but the truth could scare her more so than she already was. So, instead, I said nothing. I wrapped my arms around her tighter and stared up at the ceiling, letting my head fall back against the wall and my eyes close slowly, exhaustedly.

"Nothing we can't handle."

I hope.


	10. Make Me Wanna Die

**Chapter Ten**

_**Alex**_

On the bright side, I stopped throwing up. But that's probably because I stopped eating anything that had the potential to upset my stomach. Nikita was constantly worrying, her eyes would only leave me for a few seconds to ask Kat how the search was going for the possible cause of my sickness before they locked on me again. "Nikita." She flew to my side, kneeling beside the couch where I was resting.

"Alex? You alright?"

"Quit worrying." I growled, pulling the blanket up around me more. "Help me up?" She nodded hesitantly and slipped her hand under my side and pulled. I threw myself to my feet quickly, she caught me before I toppled over.

"Would you take it easy?" She snapped and I rolled my eyes.

"I've been on that couch for an entire day now. I need to move around before I start freaking out."

"You? Freak out? Nooooo! Say it ain't so!" Kat muttered and I glared at her.

"Shut up, pussy...kat."

"Yeah, that's original."

"Don't make me come over there!"

"Oh! I'm just soooooo scared! The handy-capped assassin is going to hobble over and cough at me until I die!"

"You know what Kat? I'm going to take your stupid computer and shove it straight up your—"

"SHUT UP!" Nikita silenced us both. Alicia's muffled cry echoed through the wall in the other room. Nikita sighed and I felt her body trembling with anger "I. Do not. Have time. To BABYSIT the TWO OF YOU!" Her voice was controlled, if not choppy, until the final part of her sentence, then she just roared like a lion. "Katrina! Keep digging into their files! I want to know what they did and when sinse the day Alex escaped!" the blonde turned back to her work, typing away furiously. Nikita turned her furious, cinnamon eyes on me and I dropped my gaze immediately. "Alexandra. I want you to sit at the table and get along." I looked up at her and opened my mouth to say something incredibly childish like 'she started it' when she snapped "Shut up." and I closed my mouth again "I want you to get along with your cousin and I'll bring you some soup and ginger ale as soon as I get Alicia to sleep again. Alright?" I nodded and she helped me to the table, sitting me down carefully in the padded seat. She disappeared for a second and then I felt the warm blanket being wrapped around my shoulders.

"Thanks" I mumbled. She didn't respond. She just stormed off towards the baby's room. There was a long, still moment of silence. Neither of us wanted to do something that would invoke the wrath of Nikita. She was terrifying when she was mad.

"You know she's only angry because she's scared right?" I blinked and snorted

"Nikita? Scared? Please."

"Seriously, Alex." She looked up at me from over her laptop. "She's afraid."

"Of what?" I asked disbelievingly.

"That someday we'll both have to repay our debts." I blinked once...twice and once again before I leaned forward

"What?" she hesitated before shutting her laptop and started fidgeting with exasperation and frustration.

"We both owe her more than we can ever put into words, Alex. She got you out of the fire, then out of the grasp of that sick son a of bitch Vlad and got you clean. She's afraid that this time, she can't save you. Like she was afraid that she couldn't save me.

About seven years ago...around the time my father thought you'd died in the fire...he started training me to take your place as the heiress to our family's empire. He...he pushed me so hard, he wanted me to learn everything I could fit into my tiny nine-year-old brain. I learned Japanese, Spanish, French, Polish, Mandarin, Taiwanese. He took me out into the woods when I was ten, taught me to make a camp, how to fight off wild animals, how to survive freezing temperatures and how to kill in self-defence. My mother didn't like it. She told my dad that I was just as much a Canadian as I was a Russian and that I shouldn't have to be Katrina Feodora Praskovia Udinov, Russian Heiress to The Udinov 'throne', if you will." She pronounced her name with a flawless Russian accent, something I'd never heard her do before, leaning back in her chair "That name was already gaining infamy before I'd even realized what it meant to be HER." Katrina said the last word like the name didn't belong to her but to someone she hated. She looked at her hands, spinning the ring around her thumb. "My mother believed I should be Kitty Peck-Udinov, daughter of Alicia Peck and Vasily Udinov; a normal, teenage girl in a normal world where my only worry would be what to wear or a math test." I leaned back in my chair, pulled my arms around me tighter. I didn't know Katrina was the next in line to take my place. She'd had to go through everything I did when I was little, probably more seeing as I was trained from birth; she was trained for nearly four years until they found out I was alive. "My father took away everything. He took away my music, the only TV we had, candy...anything that could distract me from my 'duty to control what was left to me by Alexandra.'" I winced at my name, she continued "I asked him why he couldn't take over; Nicholai was his brother, why couldn't he be the one to rule. He told me that it didn't work like that. He said that it had to be an heiress. Not an heir. A man couldn't be given that much responsibility and be expected to treat it properly. He told me that a girl, a woman, would be able to understand power; that she'd be immune to the temptation of being in that position of authority."

"Power corrupts" I murmured and she nodded at me

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." She sipped the pop in front of her and set it back down. She opened her laptop and set it off to the side, not willing to stop the search for too long.

"Do you hate me?" I asked suddenly after a long pause. Kat looked at me from across the table

"What?"

"For taking it from you?" She laughed once and leaned back again in her chair. Suddenly she looked older than I was. The sharp, intriguing glint in her ice blue eyes took on a harder edge; more aged. More mature. It felt like I was the sixteen-year-old and she was one-hundred. I saw now that she had to mature far faster than anyone should at her age. Like she'd skipped several life times in the span of seven years. "I mean, you went through all those years of training, preparation and I show up and take it all away from you again."

"Alex. You don't understand do you?" I pulled my knees to my chest as she pulled her fingers through her short hair, pushing her bangs away from her face. Her eyes stared at me, through me like a window pane. "Your 'death' was one of the reasons I wanted to die."


	11. Ring Around the Rosey

**To anyone reading this who believes there'll be "Mikita" or "Malex" scenes where they're doing anything BUT kicking each other's asses (or preferably Michael getting his ass kicked...) you're outta luck. Let the record show that I, SWLL, strongly distain any relationship involving Michael/Nikita or Michael/Alex. The show is about NIKITA and ALEX (much like how Xena was about Xena and Gabrielle, not Xena and Ares or Gabrielle and Joxer (and X and G were TOTALLY together by the way. Just sayin'.)). Thus, it's a Nikalex fanfiction. That means no kissy face or any female character exclaiming "Oh Michael! I love you so much you dangerous, mysterious, lost puppy you! Take me!" Because I will vomit all over my laptop...no one wants that.**

**P.S. Sorry it took so long to get this up...finding inspiration is surprisingly difficult...**

**Chapter Eleven**

_**Nikita**_

"It was the middle of winter, December fifteenth, I was thirteen, just out of the closet. Outted by the only friend I thought I had. The ice on the lake was weak that year. I couldn't deal with it all. I couldn't handle the hate I was getting at school, the pressure from my father...just everything. And, when I heard you died...when I heard that they lit your house on fire and you burned alive...I couldn't handle it. Everything hurt so much. I was suffocating in the world around me. I'd known Nikita for maybe half a week. She was working with my father around the time she was getting out of Division. She wasn't supposed to be in Canada, nor was she supposed to be getting close to other people. She scared me crapless. She was just so powerful, so strong and intimidating...I didn't know what to think.

I left a note for my parents on the dresser in my bedroom, explaining everything. And as I walked out onto the ice, hearing it crack under me with the thirty pound weight in my hands, I thought they'd be better off. Sure the empire would crumble but at least my father could escape it all completely." I sat with my back against the wall as Kat explained what happened all those years ago. I closed my eyes and bit against the pain that filled me when she forced me to relive the memory without knowing I was listening. "I walked into the middle of the lake and just stood there for a second. I looked down into the dark water just below the thin layer of ice and knew that was the last thing I would see before it all ended. Before it was all over. I raised the weight above my head and let it go. The only thing I saw before I fell into the water was Nikita scream for me and sprint across the ice, I remember it breaking under her feet as she came after me. And then I felt the cold hit me like a semi. I sunk quickly but it felt like eternity. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think. There was just the cold, the darkness...the stillness..." I exhaled slowly, releasing all the tension in my body carefully. "The strange relief that it would be over in a peaceful, well almost peaceful, way." She paused briefly "Then, I felt strong arms wrap around my waist and pulling me towards a bright light, the weight holding me down was gone and I was floating...or at least I was deprived of air long enough I thought I was. When I reached the light finally, a strong, harsh wind ripped against me and the person carrying me. Nikita was angry and started screaming at me, saying things like—"

"What the hell were you thinking?, how can you do this to your parents..." I murmured, walking into the room with perfect composure. "That sort of thing." Alex and her cousin looked away from each other and at the table. I walked up behind Kat and rested my hands on her shoulders. "I held you to me as we sat in the snow, listening you scream and tell me I should've let you die. I told you that there was so much more to life than death, that people would respect you if you held yourself strong and weren't afraid of them." She nodded slowly and I ruffled her spiky blonde hair "I told you that if anyone messed with you, I'd kick their asses myself." I bent down and said by her ear "I also told you that if you killed yourself, I'd kick your ass too." With a slap to the back of her head, I walked towards the kitchen to start making the soup I promised Alex. "Now, enough talking, Kat. Alex needs to rest. So shut your trap and keep searching."

"That Nikita, such a charmer."

"Damn straight."

"Nik! I got a hit!" Kat said, jumping up from the seat she'd stayed in hours after Alex went to sleep on the couch. I stayed next to her, keeping track of her fever and sleeping rates. She seemed to be getting worse rapidly. I stood and strode quickly across the room.

"What?"

"Looks like Division had planned to get Alex sick, even BEFORE they knew who she really is and that she was more or less your bitch."

"Partner"

"Whatever, it says 'Alex is unstable. Methods of cancelation via direct assassination would result in serious damage being done to Division's agents and recruits. Launch of Project Stealth is go.' Turns out, the whole you and her thing only gave Division a better reason than Alex's anger problems to take her out."

"What's Project Stealth?"

"A viral killing agent, according to the files, it's only in the testing stages of production."

"Who else was this tested on?"

"Besides Alex? No one." I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. The computer screen was riddled with code I didn't understand, Kat seemed to be able to read it like a children's book.

"How was it administered?"

"It's injected into the spine, directly between the shoulders blades for best result, it only works if it's injected into the marrow granted the heart rate one hundred at the very least." I looked over at Alex where she was curled up in a ball on the sofa.

"Symptoms?"

"These are only guesses at this point. Like I said, Alex is the first test subject on record..." she scrolled down the screen "Judging by the ingredients included in the recipe from hell, at first it's nothing, maybe exhaustion, chills, sweating or clamminess and loss of appetite; symptoms of the flu or common cold which can be easily ignored by agents of Division. But, as days go on and the infected person continues to do activities which increase their heart rate, shit gets real crazy, real fast. Looks like vomiting, fever, loss of sight, inner ear imbalance, complete loss of appetite, insomnia...I-I can't even begin to list them all! In the end it just starts to shut down the body either one part at a time or..." she looked up at her cousin "all at once."

"How much time?"

"I can't tell you for sure—"

"Goddamn it Katrina!" I slammed my hand down on the table, making her jump "I said how long does she have?"

"I don't know!" she yelled back She's the only one ever to be infected with it! Maybe a month! Maybe weeks!" Vasily stumbled in groggily, it was nearly four in the morning.

"What's going on?" He asked in a yawn, rubbing his eye. I looked up at him.

"Alex is dying."


	12. Losing Control

**Chapter 12**

_**Alex**_

"You shouldn't worry so much." I mumbled as she gently rubbed my back as a fit of coughs racked my body. I was straddling her lap, leaning into her with my body pressed as close to her as I could get as she read her book. Her thin frame was oddly comfortable, though it may have been just the heat from her body that made me sleepy. I snuggled my face closer to her chest as she moved to turn the page. She chuckled

"You can't even haul your ass off the couch to take a piss without help and I shouldn't be worried?"

"I don't want you to do anything that could get yourself hurt." She froze, her hand resting on the small of my back as she pulled the blanket around us both tighter.

"What makes you think I'm going to get hurt?" she brushed my hair from my face, reaching over to grab the damp cloth from the table a wiped my forehead with it then dabbing at my cheeks.

"I read your texts when you went out of the room earlier."

"Alex—"

"You've been talking with your contacts trying to find someone else who has a cure for whatever it is I have and you've been trying to find some arms dealer or something. So if that doesn't spell 'shit is going down' I don't know what does."

"You shouldn't have gone through my things."

"You shouldn't have left it on the coffee table."

"I don't want you to make yourself worse by worrying about me."

"Nikita, I worry about you the second you disappear from my view." I growled angrily. "I keep thinking Division will bust down the door any second and put a bullet in our skulls." She clutched me closer to her suddenly, crushing me to her. She was silent for a little while, just holding me, her gentle smell was oddly, yet not unexpectedly, comforting. I let her have a moment of quiet. I let her sit with me there, in her arms, not exactly safe, but not in immediate danger either. She spoke just as the constriction was starting to get painful.

"Nothing is going to happen to you Alex." She said with an emotional force so strong it shocked me. "I won't let Percy do to you what he did to your family. You ARE going to survive this."

"You don't have to lie, Nikita." I wheezed and cleared my throat, Nikita's hand rubbing small circles on my back. "I know how bad this is. I know my survival rate is—"

"Quiet." She silenced me with a commanding tone. I bit my tongue, resisting the sudden urge I had to be spiteful and continue my self-sacrificing speech. "I don't want to hear you talking about this anymore. I don't want you to think for a single SECOND that I am going to leave you in order to save myself. It won't happen, Alex. Not now, not even at the end. YOU are my top priority. I lose you, I lose. End of discussion."

"You're being unrealistic."

"Alex." I sat back and she tucked the blanket around me, her face twisted into a look of great concern.

"I know I'm going to die, Nikita. I've accepted it. Why can't you?" She stared at me for a long moment, her eyes gentle but angry as hell. I knew she cared for me. I knew we'd, shall we say, bonded through the crazy shit we had to do. I know that I had been a key player in her plan to take down division until I screwed up and nearly got gunned down more than once…But now I seemed like more of a liability than an asset for Nikita. Like my being her, being her partner in crime, was going to get her killed. She pulled her fingers through my hair a few times, my eyes were beginning to drift close like a dog's when you scratch behind its ear. Shut up. I couldn't help what felt the most comforting at the moment…even if it was something as miniscule as a finger-hair brush. She pulled me close against her again.

"I can't accept it because you are the one thing I did right my entire life. Saving you was the only good thing I did in my life."

"What about Daniel?" there was a small pause and she sighed heavily.

"I got him killed."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I knew better than to get too involved with a civilian. Especially a civilian who was part of my cover. I shouldn't have let myself fall for him."

"It's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all." She chuckled once despite herself.

"When'd you get so wise?"

"Being stuck on the couch for almost a week watching stupid people preach stupid things can do that to you."

I woke on the couch just as the sun was rising, the warm body that I'd fallen asleep on had vanished. I blinked groggily, feeling stranger than usual. Not in a sick way. Not like something was wrong with me. I felt…normal. Healthy. I hesitantly swung my feet over the edge of the couch and was surprised that the need to throw up or keel over in pain didn't hit me like a truck. I couldn't stop the moronic grin that spread over my face. I was fine! I was great! I could help Nikita! I could fight for myself or we could both just run. "Nikita!" I yelled out for her, "Nikita! Come here! I can—" out of the shadows of the hallway stumbled Nikita, a fat lip and black eye decorating her beautiful face. She stumbled forward until she was shoved forward by a tall figure and fell flat on her face. I stood up, grasping the gun which had suddenly appeared in the waistband of my sweat pants. I held it out in front of me and pulled back the hammer, hearing it cock with a familiar click. I stepped over Nikita's limp body slowly, deliberately.

"Alex—" Nikita wheezed

"I know Nikita." Percy stepped out of the shadows, a cocky smirk on his ugly face.

"Really, Alexandra?"

"Shut up you sick son of a bitch!"

"Because," he continued like I hadn't said a thing. "Because I don't think you know anything. I don't think you could even pull the trigger." I felt my own cruel smirk spreading over my face.

"I would gladly put a bullet in the head of my father's murderer."

"I didn't kill your father, Alex."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not lying. It's true."

"Go to hell." I pulled the trigger with the gun trained strictly at his heart. Blood splattered against the light green walls behind him. He fell down limply, his upper half once again shrouded in the shadows. A wave of overwhelming satisfaction rolled over me. It was over. Finally he was dead. I could breathe again. The weight was lifted from my heart and I could breathe again. My gun clattered to the floor and my legs wobbled. "It's over…" I sighed heavily "it's finally over."I drooped to my knees weakly and that's when I heard the noise that sent a violent shiver through my spine.

Nikita was laughing.

I could hear the restraints trapping her arms snap and her high heeled boots clicking on the ground as she stood up. I turned around slowly, not wanting to know what she was doing. Terrified that something was wrong. I looked straight into the barrel of my gun, feeling my heart stop for a second. The cold glint in her eyes, the way she smiled so distantly. It was like I meant nothing to her. Like I was disposable. Like I was nothing but a pawn in some sick game of chess. "Good job Alex." She said my name with empty enthusiasm. "You just did my job for me."

"Alexandra…" my heart squeezed sharply and I turned around, seeing my father's eyes looking back at me from what had been Percy only moments before. I gasped a sob.

"Papa!" forgetting the gun trained on me, I scrambled forward to my father, lying bleeding out on the ground. "Papa! Papa I'm so sorry! You're going to be fine I promise." I pressed my hands over his heart, feeling his blood well out from between my fingers. My hands shifted desperately, trying to find some way, ANY way I could stop the bleeding. His eyes locked with mine as his head slowly fell back against the wooden floor.

"The angels are here, Alexandra…they've come to take me home."

"Stay with me Papa, please!"

"You know what you must do Alexandra" he whispered just loud enough for me to hear. "You must survive. You must avenge my death. You must…you…" his cooling hand gently laid over mine as his eyes shifted closed.

I screamed, crying harder than I'd ever thought possible. There were no words, no true meaning to the strangled cry. It was the howl of unbelievable pain and absolute primal rage. I'd lost everything for the second time. I watched my father die again, the bullet from my gun, NIKITA's gun, had carve a hole in his chest. And now I sat on the floor, my throat burning and my father's life coating my skin. The fury had consumed me completely and I stood up slowly, turning to face Nikita. "Pawn to king four." She had a disgustingly sweet smile on her face. "Say goodnight." She purred.

"Goodnight." I lunged forward and knocked the gun from her hands, my fist slammed violently under her chin.

**Nikita**

I crashed through the glass coffee table, smashing the back of my head against the hard wood floor. Alex had been whimpering and twitching like a hunting dog on the couch where I left her. I just touched her shoulder and said "Alex?" and she nailed me a good one under the chin. My head screamed and still I pushed myself to my feet. Alex matched me toe to toe. Her skin was sleek with a thin sheet of sweat and her fists were clenched so tightly it looked like the bone would break through her skin. "Alex! What was that?"

"You made me kill him." She snarled in Russian. It was then that I saw the soul burning hatred as violent as a forest fire sitting in her eyes. Her words were like acid, her body rippling with adrenaline flooded muscles. "And now," she was breathing heavily like she was struggling to get the words out from around her anger. "Now I kill you." She launched forward, grabbing my arm and using it to throw me into the wall.

"Alex! Calm down!" I caught her fist an inch from my face and pushed her back. She charged forward, her head smashing into my stomach and forcing me to keel over. I'd never seen anyone fight the way she was fighting. Normally you can predict anything a fighter does by how they move, where their eyes go etc. but Alex was fighting without strategy. There was no defence. It was just attack, attack, attack again and again and again. She was as unpredictable as a cornered wild animal. I slid to the ground as she was pulled off of me. Black dots clouded my vision as I tried to figure out what was going on. Kat clipped Alex's shoulder as she spun out of the way of the blonde's attack, forcing her cousin to stumble forward off balance. Alex kicked her hard just behind her knees. Kitty fell backwards and sprung back up before she could hit the ground completely. Kat kicked Alex in the stomach and then swiped her legs out from under her. The brunette fell with a loud thud on the broken glass.

"What the HELL is going on!"

"You tell me!" I yelled, tackling Alex as she moved to get up, pushing us both away from the razor sharp shards. "Oh no you don't." and she head butted me twice, easily pushing me off her

"You told me that you wanted to keep me alive because it was the only thing you did right." She snarled in flawless Russian, stepping on my chest hard. "but really, you just wanted to use me for your ploy. So you could kill Percy and then dispose of me. Just. Like. Division." I pushed her off and rolled out of the way. "Well guess what, Nikita. I'm going to rip you apart." I swung and she caught it, delivering a sharp blow to my ribs. I took several more shots to my stomach before a loud smack echoed out and Alex fell limply against me. I looped my arms around her body and slowly lowered her to the ground. Her body trembled softly, letting me know she wasn't knocked out. At least not completely. Her fingers clenched my shirt. I gently stroked her head and looked up at Kat whose grim face mirror mine. We both knew the same thing. I needed to find help.

Now.

**Thursday's episode had my heart racing. Nikita better not be dead or I'm going to flip the hell out. If you couldn't tell, I got my inspiration for this chapter from that episode…REALLY shocked me to find out that Nikita killed Alex's father…sigh.**

**Sorry I haven't updated in forever, family issues, school stress, softball commitments…it's just crazy right now (I haven't had a single day off since the start of April; softball and school own my ass until school's out. I only had time to write this because I got up at 5:30 am only to have my first game delayed until noon and couldn't get back to sleep, then they cancelled the game all together.) So I appreciate your patients and I will try to update as soon as possible which maybe forever from now but I'll still try.**

**That review button…look how shiny and blue it is…you know you wanna click it.**


	13. New Hope

**I mean to…but I didn't actually get this up in time for my birthday, my pinky and ring finger got smashed by a pitch at a game (on my birthday, woohoo…) and, while was nothing serious, they were swollen and sore and what-not so typing was a pain in my ass (well, hand but you get the point.) Then I went off the radar for the long weekend (Victoria Day in Canada) where we've got no internet so I couldn't post…but happy belated birthday gift from me to you!**

**Chapter 13**

_**Nikita**_

We spent hours cleaning up the mess that was made when Alex freaked out. Spent even longer digging out the slivers of glass from Alex's back. She didn't bleed too badly at least, she whimpered and squirmed as we dug with the tweezers. Now she sat in the corner of the room, knees pulled to her chest, one of Vasily's dress shirts covered her torso and black sweats covered her legs. Her hair was splayed around her face messily. Her eyes were tortured. She looked down when I winced as I packed, biting her trembling lip. I had a suitcase and a small duffle bag being packed with weapons and supplies by Kat. The non-essentials were being packed in the suitcase so I could dump them if I needed to. "I'm like an infected ant." The spiky-headed blonde and I turned to look at the brunette in the corner.

"An ant?" she looked at us hesitantly, like she hadn't meant to say it out loud.

"There's this fungus and it latches onto an ant and seeps into their bodies. Eventually the ant starts to lose control over its own body and acts violently towards others or just goes insane. The other ants notice after a while and they carry the infected ant off far away and leave it to die for the safety of the nest."

"Alright, you REALLY need to stop watching the discovery channel."

"Why don't you just move me somewhere? Somewhere where I won't be able to hurt anyone again?"

"You weren't going insane, Alex, it was a hallucination caused by the virus. It's not your fault."

"I wanted to hurt you…" she whispered softly, looking at her bruised hands, the nearly scarred over cuts on her knuckles had gotten raw from beating the living hell out of me and Kitty. She stared at her fingers like she couldn't believe what she'd done. "I wanted you to suffer…it just…it felt SO real…"

"Hey" I kneeled down in front of her, gently cupping her face in my hands. "Alex" she didn't look up "Alex!" her eyes met mine slowly, unsurely. "It was NOT your fault, alright?" she nodded slowly. "I'm going to meet one of my contacts, he's going to help me figure out what exactly this virus is, and he's going to help you and then we're going to get far, far away from Percy and Amanda and everyone else and we'll find another way to take them down." I turned back to start packing.

"No." I turned back

"What?"

"If you won't put me somewhere where I can't hurt you, then I'm staying to fight." I opened my mouth to protest and she cut me off before I could get a word out. "We're so close Nikita. Kat is already into the network and we've got Percy scrambling and Division teetering on the edge and we just need once swift, clean strike to push them over."

"It is NOT worth killing you."

"I'd rather die for a good cause than die like a coward!" I stood up straight at the fierceness of her tone. The fire flaring in her blue eyes and the anger coming from her made me rethink everything. A feeling of primal confrontation swelled in my chest. Like she was challenging my 'alpha' status. She took a few shallow uneven breaths, like she'd just run a marathon. There was a small moment of quiet, tension while Alex caught her breath. Her eyes never left mine. "If I run, if I let you pull me away and run with my tail between my leg, then I disgrace my father's memory. My FAMILY'S memory." I looked down at my hands, holding a fully loaded pistol. It seemed to grow heavier with every second. "I won't stop until Percy's heart stops beating. I can't stop until he is worm food and Division is destroyed." She blinked slowly, her eyes unfocusing and refocusing out of exhaustion. "In the end, Nikita, it will either be him or me. I'm. Not. Running." I locked eyes with her again and nodded slowly, hesitantly, then shook my head hard, changing my mind.

"No. Nothing in this world is worth your life. Not even Percy's."

"Nikita—" I put up my hand stopping her from talking. I turned half way to Kitty

"Could you give us a second?" she put down the tech she was holding and raised her hands in the air like she had a gun pointed at her.

"I've gotta go check on the other gadgets I got lined up anyway." She walked from the room leisurely stopping in the kitchen to grab a pop before bounding up the stairs.

"You can't make me leave." She said defiantly.

"Watch me." I matched her weak, yet oddly powerful tone.

"You don't understand Nikita. I lost everything. I lost my mother, my father and who ever I was supposed to be in that fire. Whoever Alexandra Udinov was supposed to be, what she was supposed to do, went up in smoke. I have nothing but my father's watch and the memories attached to it to remember who I am." I kneeled down in front of her slowly, resting my hands on my thighs. "I'm not going to let you get killed and I'm not going to run. If I'm going out, I'm doing it my way." I looked at my fingers, seeing the odd bumps from where I'd broken a few knuckles and bones, from where they had healed awkwardly. The scars from where I'd made mistakes in fights. I couldn't let Alex do this. I couldn't let her accept that the only way out, the only way to get what she wanted, was to risk everything.

I couldn't let her turn out like I did.

"Well your plan conflicts with mine. You see, I'm not going to let you die because of what that sick bastard injected you with and I'm not going to let him put a bullet in your head. The day I pulled you from the fire, you became my responsibility. You became my purpose. You became my family." She held my gaze even, not over powering but with the same force that came with her words. Her promise. "I lost everything to Division too, Alex." I took a deep breath to calm myself down. "I'm not going to lose you too." With that I stood up and turned away from her, packing the rest of my weapons into the duffle bag and grabbed half a dozen pill bottles from my bag, each of them containing vitamins and minerals that would help nourish Alex's body without her needing to eat anything. I walked into the kitchen and poured a glass of water and grabbed a spoon then came back, setting it on the make-shift wooden coffee table and laying out each of the pills side by side.

"What is that?"

"Something that's going to make you feel better, strengthen you."

"I thought you didn't know what I have."

"I don't. But it's making you weak. So, by giving you a boost, it'll make you feel a bit better at least." I pulled open the first capsule and poured the powder into the glass. I pulled a hunting knife out of my boot and laid it on the table; I'd need to crush some of them.

"Won't I just puke it up?"

"Not if your body absorbs it fast enough. At most you'll just end up throwing up water and maybe some of the vitamins; you'll get something out of it though." We sat in silence for a little while after that, she watched as I crushed the solid pills into dust and sprinkled them into the glass.

"I had that vision again." She said softly

"What vision?"

"The one I had when Amanda put me under in Division. The one where I see myself kill Nathan." I froze and looked over at her. She didn't seem afraid or upset. She seemed emotionless, numb. It sent a shiver up my spine.

"And?"

"And this time it was different." That caught my attention, I swivelled and sat cross legged in front of her, like a child at story time. "This time we were in Division's main control room. Just her and I." She swallowed hard; the insomnia had started to set in. Alex hadn't slept for more than a hour for a couple days now. "She was speaking Russian the entire time. She kept talking about what greatness I was supposed to bring to my father's empire. Most of the sentences didn't make sense, like what she was saying had been pre recorded and chopped up to mean something entirely different than what was coming out of her mouth...but pieces, clips were missing. And, before she could finish what she was saying, the mansion blew up."

"Blew up?"

"Yeah." I could tell there was more to what she'd seen than she was letting on. The look in her eyes and how she avoided eye contact was a dead give away that she was hiding something. I didn't press though. The way she was right now, looking like she was an extra in a zombie apocalypse movie, made it impossible for me to get angry. I didn't want to upset her. Not now, at the very least. I stirred the mixture of vitamins well before scooting over to her on my knees, careful not to spill the solution.

"Drink." I commanded gently. She raised two shaky hands to the glass and I pushed them away carefully, "I got it." Her hands came up anyway as I touched the rim to her lips, her clammy fingers resting over mine as she took a sip and sputtered, coughing the mixture up.

"That tastes like sewer water" she glared at the slightly greenish-orange coloured liquid in the glass.

"yeah, well, there's a reason you're supposed to swallow this stuff when it's in a flavourless capsule." I swirled the disgusting medicine in the glass. "Come on."

"I'd rather die."

"That can be arranged." I said, trying (and failing) to lighten the mood. She gave me a sarcastic 'you're hilarious' look. "Seriously, drink, Alex." After a brief pause, she hesitantly reached for it again and I helped her, supporting the back of her head like you would an infant and tipped the glass up slowly. She finished with the most disgusted expression I'd ever seen. "See? That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"if this virus doesn't kill me, that sure as hell will."

"Next time I'll figure out a way to make it taset better."

"What do you mean, 'next time'? I'm not doing that again."

"Yes you are."

"No way."

"Yes way."

"Nikita…"

"Alex." I slid my arms under her and lifted up slowly, making sure I didn't jar her too much; vomit doesn't mix with leather jackets well. I laid her down on the couch, pulling the heavy blanket I'd brought in up around her. "Rest." I cooed gently, kneeling by her side. I knew she wouldn't sleep for more than half an hour or so if she did sleep at all but anything she got at this point would be good. Better than good.

A miracle.

I met Kat up in her room after Alex was settled. She had set up what looked like a control centre on the desk in her room. I looked at the hammock suspended from the left and right wall and smirked. "So you finally got your dad to replace your bed with a hammock?" She didn't look up from where she was still hooking up wires.

"Mom convinced him." That killed the conversation and I looked over her shoulder at what she was doing.

"Care to explain?" She grunted, gripping a screw driver between her teeth and disappearing under the desk. I studied her equipment carefully. Half of it looked brand new and the other half looked twenty years old. "Where did you get this stuff?"

"The department gives me the crap they don't use anymore. Anyway, we don't have time to talk about this right now. We've got more pressing matters to deal with." She crawled out from under the desk and stood up. Her fingers were wrapped in a multitude of different coloured band-aids.

"What the hell did you do?"

"Soldering and wire twisting accidents." She grumbled

"What is division doing right now?" she moved over to her tower of power and flicked a switch, booting the computer up within seconds. The four monitors positioned around the keyboard all showed code so complex I couldn't tell where one sequence ended and another began. Kit hit a couple keys and the oldest looking monitor on the far right showed a radar satellite photo of all of North America. Glowing dots decorated the US border and were speckled through the eastern parts of Canada.

"Right now they're looking for you and Alex. They're exhausting every resource within Percy's power to figure out where you guys went. Birkoff found the decoy tracker I planted, if he tries to track it's source it'll just redirect him to Division's own tech lab which'll slow them down even more as the hell bitch interrogates the lab workers."

"Good job, did you find out anything about the virus?" her brows furrowed and she typed a few things into the computer and pulled up a document on the opposite screen.

"I don't think it's a virus anymore. I found this report in their med room computer. This…whatever it is, works like arsenic. While the injection site is the spine, it leaches out and into the blood stream, and from the blood stream it settles in the muscle tissue and heart." My throat tightened.

"So what? She's got no chance of surviving now?"

"I didn't say that." Kitty growled, obviously agitated that I kept interrupting her genius rant. "Whoever injected her obvious miscalculated the dosage-"

"So she's going to make it?"

"Would you shut up for three seconds?" I mimed locking my lips and throwing away the key. "The dosage needed to be lethal, and I mean die within hours or a day at the most, would've had to be about four or five millilitres. Any amount over that sends the body into over load and would cause instant death via bleeding out. Which is a mess you'd need the hazmat guys to clean up cause the virus becomes air borne and could easily eliminate Percy's entire army of delinquents." She looked at me for a moment "No offence" and I swatted the back of her head. "Probably meaning whoever had done it was in a rush, knowing what could happen if they over dosed her. At the rate that Alex is, well, deteriorating, I'd say she was injected with half the amount she was supposed to be." She looked me dead in the eyes "Alex has more time than I thought."

"That's good."

Then she turned back to the radar screen, watching the dots and the code through narrowed eyes. "I have the funny feeling Percy's got something up his sleeve…" I pulled the syringe out of my pocket, feeling a rush of adrenaline flood my veins. Alex has more time. I had more time to find her a cure.

To save her.

"I'm going." I said "I'm taking a sample of Alex's blood and I'm leaving to meet my contact. Tell your dad good bye." I bounded down the stairs.

I was going to save Alex.

**I've been trying to up my game performance which means I've been sacrificing virgins to the softball goddess. And by "virgins", I mean free time and by "Softball" I mean the game and by "Goddess" I mean practice. So I'll have even LESS time to write now which means these updates are going to slow a lot more.**


	14. We All Fall Down

**So hi, **

**Sigh, this chapter really is for shit because I wrote it in pieces and then just kind of threw it all together at the last second. But I kind of liked it so I left it as is. Normally I don't reply to questions being asked in the reviews but, to whom ever asked it 'cause I completely forget at the moment, I'm not Asian, I'm actually Austrian-Canadian but my brother was taking Japanese, my sister and him watch a lot of anime and I have a friends that speak Taiwanese and Mandarin and I realised that…well shit Asian languages sound really bad ass sometimes. Which is why Kat learned so many different languages from that part of the world…**

**I've also got a big test coming up on Monday so you might not hear from me again for another week or so…depending on how things work out. **

**Any who, enough of my rambling. **

** Chapter 14**

_**Alex**_

I walked through the same damn hallway I had every time I found just a hint of unconsciousness. I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually had a peaceful sleep. I looked around at the mansion walls around me. I knew I was dreaming…hallucinating but I still couldn't get over just how real everything looked and felt. I reached out, dragging my fingers over the walls, the rough bumps of the textured walls pushing against my fingers. I listened to my steps on the hardwood flooring, feeling the solid ground beneath me, a strangely familiar sound. The last time I had been in this house was around when I was thirteen, before it'd been burnt down by Division. I sighed longingly, wishing that my home was still standing. Wishing my father was still around. I shook my head.

At least I didn't feel sick when I was in this nightmare. I could walk without my legs feeling like they were going to buckle and my stomach was going to come out my throat. I looked at the dusty pictures hanging on the wall; some were empty, probably due to gaps in my memory while others were of my family and me. There were Christmases and birthdays, weddings and anniversaries, most of which I only remembered the pictures.

Soon, I reached the end of the hallway and pushed open the heavy, mahogany double doors to the room that was my father's office.

Or rather, my office.

There I sat in my plush leather chair behind the large, antique desk, white suit and short hair, signing papers. She looked up at me as I entered, then back down at her work. The strangest part of this nightmare was that it was never exactly the same. Sometimes things she said wouldn't make sense, other times she'd seem to remember that I'd been here before. But the oddest part was that she seemed just as pissed to see me as I was to see her. "I really wish you would stop coming back." She growled in Russian, I rolled my eyes

"If I had any choice I wouldn't."

"And yet, here you are." She closed a rather large looking book sitting in front of her.

"Hallucinations are a real bitch."

"Agreed." She said standing up, walking around the table. "I can tell you again and again what you're destined to be, even if you don't listen." She murmured, sounding a whole hell of a lot friendlier than times before. "There's nothing anyone can do to stop Alexandra from claiming her rightful throne."

"How do you know?" I demanded, she met my gaze evenly

"I know because you know" She turned away from me again "you may think I'm this entirely different being, something that knows more than you do" She faced me "but I'm you. Whether you, or I, like it or not, I'm just a figment of your imagination."

"Then how do you know more than I do about…everything?"

"I have more access to the parts of your memory you've blocked out." She walked back to me, holding a small, diary like book in her hand. The back of her fingers gently touched my cheek. "Everything you need to know is here." She told me in a hushed whisper "all you need to do is find out how to open it." I opened my mouth to say something when all hell broke loose.

The mansion began to shake as if an earthquake had just erupted out of nowhere. The chairs and walls began to light on fire, windows shattered and suddenly I was all alone amidst the destruction. Black bodies swarmed the crumbling building. Smoke began to choke my lungs. I staggered back into the large widow behind me. Weakness shook my body again, my head pounded and nausea clenched my stomach. A hand touched my shoulder and I looked, gasping when I saw Kat standing there, a determined look shining in her eyes.

"It's the only way" she said before pushing me out the window. I gasped as I fell towards the earth, the black night spiralling around me in a dark blur like smudged ink. With a deafening sound, the mansion erupted in a giant fire ball, every opening shooting out a burning ball of smoke and light.

I jarred forward; waking up with a gasp, my eyes snapping open so fast the world was just a big white blur for a moment. No matter how many times I had that dream, no matter how many times the dream ended the same, I never could get past the terror I felt afterwards. I lied to Nikita about it. I made up a completely different dream, a completely different scenario. Like the first hallucination I had. I hadn't told Nikita what really happened. I told her that she had attacked me, that it'd been crazy and completely out of control, which wasn't exactly a lie. But, then again, the best lies are half-truths. Nikita taught me that. A knot of guilt began twisting in my stomach. I didn't like lying to her, but my gut told me that telling her what I'd really seen in that hallucination would've been a huge mistake. One that would've caused something horrible. I swallowed compulsively and rubbed the sweat from my forehead as the cell phone Nikita left me rang on the crappy coffee table which had taken the place of the one I broke. I reached for the small black device without hesitation. "Hello?"

"Hey" I sighed with relief at the sound of my mentor's voice. "Alex? What's wrong?" I fell back against the couch, swallowing once hard. It surprised me how Nikita could tell that I was upset from only a heavy exhale. I shook my head, trying to clear the remaining threads of the dream from my mind.

"Nothing, nothing." I told her "just another nightmare to add to the collection of crazy shit happening to me." A tense silence over took the conversation. I could tell Nikita didn't like to leave me as weak as I was which wasn't all too surprising. But we both knew that if she were to complete her crazy ass quest to save me from something she knew next to nothing about, she'd have to leave me with Vasily and Kat and Alicia. Not that Alicia was much help to me, unless eating or gnawing on anything that was mine was her way of 'helping'.

"How do you feel?" I felt the sweat roll down my neck and swallowed as a sudden wave of nausea swept through me. I was getting worse, I knew it, but there was no reason to freak Nikita out more than she already was. "Alex?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a little…" my train of thought escaped me for a moment "just a little tired is all."

"Did you drink the vitamins yet?" she asked and I thought for a second about lying to her, then I decided that making her yell at me through the phone from…where ever it was she was, wasn't the most fun thing in the world.

"Uh…no, Kat hasn't tried to pour sewer water down my throat yet."

"I told her she should give it to you right about this time. Stupid teenager." She growled affectionately for my younger cousin.

"I don't know about that." I murmured thoughtfully. "I think it's smart not to make someone who could beat the shit out of you drink swamp goo."

"I don't think you could beat the shit out of a fly, let alone a sixteen-year-old girl with martial arts training and a few other defence skills under her belt." The smile in her voice made me smile too. She hadn't even seemed the slightest bit happy since I'd last been completely conscious. 'Completely' conscious meaning awake and aware of what the hell was going on around me, opposed to the alternative that was me being in limbo where I could just barely understand anything and could only remember a few scraps of the events that happened. Like when Nikita took my blood before she left. She was prattling on and on about something so quickly my severely slowed thought process couldn't figure out what she was saying. She sounded really excited about something though, like 'oh my god I might piss myself right here' excited. She had planted a small kiss on my forehead before bounding out the door and around the corner.

"Funny." I said with the most emotionless voice I could muster, which was horrifyingly easy. "So, what do you want?" She chuckled.

"I need directions, the ones I've got are leading me into a dead end."

"You sure that's not where you're supposed to meet?"

"I don't think a back alley is exactly this contact's style."

"I dunno, Nikita…" I smirked, having fun toying with her "your contacts are sometimes pretty shady characters, maybe a back alley is exactly his style."

"Well, he's not here now."

"Maybe you should go back a night." There was a long pause and I sighed "You're going to beat me up when you get back, aren't you?"

"Thinking about it. Put Kat on the phone."

"Alright" I stood up carefully, my legs felt oddly rubbery, like when you cross one leg over the other and your foot goes numb kind of rubbery.

"Don't get up Alex! Get Vasily or someone to take the phone for you." I stopped walking

"I need the exercise, Nikita." I muttered in an annoyed growl. She exhaled with exasperation.

"Fine. Just hurry up, Alex, I need a name and address too. He must've—" a strange feeling vibrated through me and suddenly, the ground was coming at me incredibly fast. The phone clattered out of my hands and my head hit the hard wood. My chest tightened painfully, squeezing the air from my lungs. Panic and pain mingled in a deafening roar in my head. I wheezed for air, fingers clutching at my side. "Alex!" I heard the voice through the phone cry out in almost as much fear as I felt. "Alex! Can you hear me!"

"Nikita…" I gasped, my chest squeezing tighter. "I can't move…my legs..." the numb tingle had quickly slipped into immobility. My legs made feeble twitches in response to my brains orders and suddenly stopped showing any sign of connection at all. My chest was painfully tight, like someone's boot was being pressed on my ribcage. "I can't breathe…"

Oh shit.

"Hold tight! I'm coming back!" loud crashes of smashing windows and broken down doors reached my ears. A shriek of outrage rang out through the house, gun fire and yelling, Alicia's terrified screams came from her room. But for me, everything was in slow motion. I couldn't move from where I lay on the floor, my body slowly becoming less and less responsive. But still I fought; still I struggled and tried to pull myself across the living room floor. Kat knocked a division agent over, stabbing him in the chest with a kitchen knife. The man howled with agony, grasping at the metallic impalement feebly. Jayden came in through the back door, catching Kat off guard and grabbing her short hair, using it as a handle as she smashed my cousin's face in against the white wall, a long smear of crimson marking where her head had impacted. She lashed out with her legs, tripping my archenemy and sending them both crashing to the ground. Kat's forehead was torn open, blood cascading over one eye like a crimson water fall. She staggered blindly to her feet, stumbling into the wall, trying to get her bearings, the goo now trailing down her neck and staining her shirt and left a bloody hand print on the wall. A young, possibly new, agent charged her full force. She dodged and jumped up, driving her heel into the back of his neck and into the ground, leaving him lifeless on the ground. Kat whirled around, catching a mean right hook to the jaw but attacking the next division agent without hesitation, embedding a pencil in his neck, blood squirting out at an almost comedic rate.

"Kat" I wheezed, seeing Jayden reach for the gun of a fallen agent. The sixteen-year-old turned to look at me at just the wrong time "look—" With two loud gunshots, blood sprayed from Kat's shoulder and chest, her body jerked with agony, forcing her to her knees. But it hadn't been Jayden who fired the shots…

It'd been Michael.

He kicked her forward, sending her to the floor. Kitty looked at me, blinking slowly with her one unclouded eye and I could tell she was having the same feelings I was. That everything was beginning to slow, a strange placidity in a war zone. We looked at each other for what seemed like eternity. Heavy breaths and agonized pants were the only thing that reached my ears.

And, at the same time, we reached for each other.

Her bruised and battered hand slid across the floor weakly towards me, fingers leaving smears of blood on the hard wood floor. I took her hand in mine, feeling nothing physically or emotionally. Just absolute numbness.

"Forgive me, Alex." She whimpered softly "I've failed you…and Nikita."

"No, Kat, you didn't."

"I tried, I-I did my best…"

"I know Kitty, I know." She nodded weakly, her once spiked blonde hair now hung in awkward clumps of encrusted blood, some sticking out and others plastered to her face.

"I'm sorry…Alex…" Slowly, Katrina's eye closed and a heavy, pained sigh left her lips, blood trailing from the corner of her mouth. Her head rested on the floor with the sickening thud of dead weight. A single, bloody tear trickled out from under her eyelid.

"Kat?" I wheezed, squeezing her hand as tight as I could "Kat? Kat wake up." Salty tears poured down my face. No. No she couldn't have…she couldn't be… "Katrina, please!"

She couldn't be dead.

This couldn't be happening to me again.

A large body plunked to the ground beside me, Vasily's face only centimetres from my own. The large man was covered in blood, most of which I was sure wasn't his. His hands were bound behind his back, hog tied like an animal waiting for slaughter. His nose had been broken, his eye bruised and swollen. Nikita's voice called out for me through the dropped cell phone, but the words she said seemed miles away. I could only look into the eyes of my father's brother and see the burning passion and will. The anger and the betrayal. The look of a man who'd let his family down.

The same look my father had as he died.

"Stay strong" he panted heavily in Russian, just loud enough for me to hear. "The world will need you more than ever now."

"No," I said, my native language coming from my mouth of its own accord, my voice trembling "I don't want to be alone, Uncle." I blinked against the tears, feeling my throat close with emotion "I can't be alone, not again." I looked up as a shoe pressed down on my uncle's back. The man pinning him down held my cell phone to his ear.

"Godspeed, Alexandra." My uncle whispered hoarsely, "may the angels watch over you." A sudden burning hatred boiled inside my heart. But the numbness spreading through my body seemed to quiet the intense sensation as well as the feelings swarming my mind like a nest of angry wasps. Soon enough, my eyelids grew heavy, my consciousness darkened and I began to float in a sea of black clouds. But the voice I'd grown to despise drifted through my mind, cutting the uncomfortable peace like a butcher's knife.

"Hello, Nikita." Percy purred.


	15. Effective Against Disease and Assassins

**Chapter 15**

_**Percy**_

"Percy you sick son of a bit—"

"I truly wish I had more time to stay and chat." I cut Nikita off mid insult, looking at the fallen Udinovs at my feet, my gun trained at the back of Vasily's head. Finding where Nikita had stashed Alex hadn't been too difficult. We purposely took a longer period of time finding them, letting Nikita think that we were searching for them, grasping at straws. I knew that once Nikita thought that her little Russian Doll was safely hidden in the middle of a typical suburban area she'd leave the nest, giving us the perfect opportunity to take Alex and her family down. Jayden flipped over the body of Katrina Udinov, training her pistol on her forehead. I put my hand over hers, stopping her after I'd noticed the almost unnoticeable and weak rise and fall of her chest. I moved the phone from my ear and muffled the mouth piece in my shirt "don't." I told her, earning a look of frustration from the new agent. "Amanda requested that if we should find her, we bring her in."

"Since when do you take orders from Amanda?" Michael asked and I looked over at him, trying to figure out the emotions hidden behind his stone cold mask.

"Not orders, Michael, just a gift to a loyal employee is all." I looked at the broken child at Jayden's feet and tilted my head. "Besides, a gifted mind like hers would be a valuable asset to Division."

"What about Alex?" Jayden asked, gesturing to the other unconscious girl "it would be more than an honour if I would be allowed to put a bullet in that thick skull of hers, sir." I chuckled, liking the fire in her eyes.

"Not now, Jayden. Ms. Udinov could also be of use to Division."

"She'll never go for whatever you tell her, Percy." Michael said, a hint of confusion showing in his eyes "Nikita's already set her mind on a one way track."

"Well, Michael." I said, as he turned the limp body over slowly "Trees in the forest bend to changing winds, the ones that don't, break."

_**Nikita**_

I ran up the steps of the house, my heart pounding mercilessly in my ears. This wasn't supposed to happen. This SHOULDN'T have happened. She was supposed to be safe. She was supposed to live. But now Percy had her, now she was in more danger than ever before. There was no telling what he was planning to do. I didn't hesitate as I entered through the busted open door, gun drawn and eyes scanning. The broken cries of a toddler rang loud and clear. "Vasily!" I called into the house, looking around the home at the same time I was trying to find Alicia. "Alicia! Where are you, Sweetie?" as I turned the corner into the living room I froze, my world spinning and flipping upside down. Blood was everywhere, bodies lay broken with their eyes wide open. A drippy red hand print smeared against the far wall. My dear friend was tied up on the ground.

And in the middle of the chaos was Alicia, sitting in a pool of her own father's blood, her own sticky, red hand prints smeared on her plump cheeks. She sobbed brokenly, snot streaming from her nose like the tears from her eyes, her tiny white shorts and pink shirt were turned a horrifying crimson. Tiny prints dotted her father's shirt, like she'd tried to wake him up. "Vasily!" I cried, running to him, my gun clattering to the floor. "Vasily can you hear me?" I kneeled next to him and pressed my fingers to his neck and jerked back. His skin was waxy and cold, a bullet hole in the back of his head. His half congealed blood stuck to my hands and pants, making my skin slick and sticky. My own tears began falling. I should've been there. I shouldn't have left them alone. I knew that if Percy struck, they wouldn't be able to fight Division off. I left because I was over confident, too cocky and excited to understand that even Kat couldn't keep Birkhoff guessing forever. I wiped my nose with my clean forearm "Katrina!" I called out, "Kat! Are you here!" I stood up, a sudden wave of desperation flooding me. I ran to the bathroom "Alex!" I howled, looking around as if she'd pop out of a room and ask me what the hell my problem was. Alicia's screech pulled me out of my frantic state and I walked around her father's body, kneeling down beside her.

Division would send a Cleaner soon; I had to get Alicia the hell out of here before then.

I scooped her blood soaked body from the floor and cradled her to me the best I could without touching her with my hands. There wouldn't be enough time to clean her here, I'd have to make a run for it. Maybe head over to Gale's house. Quickly, I moved towards the kitchen, her tiny hand pressing against my face and the other against my neck. I grabbed an old duffle bag from the kitchen closet and began filling it with all the bottles and diapers I could. Then, I was out the door, running with Alicia tucked securely into my jacket, protecting her small body from the cold rain and harsh wind. I needed to disappear before the Cleaner showed up.

Or did I?

I stopped, looking down at the child grasping my shirt tightly, weighing my options. I turned around and ran back. If Percy thought that just because he took Alex from me, because he left Alicia there knowing I'd get her away to safety the second I saw her and give him more time, he was dead wrong.

I put Alicia in Kat's room and locked the doors and windows, wrapping her in my jacket, lulling her to sleep. The cleaner was already there, arriving just as I'd disappeared upstairs. I put carpenter ear muffs on the infant to keep her calm, things were about to get real noisy, real fast. I crept downt he stairs silently, catching him as he loaded Vasily's body into the metal tub. I clenched my fingers by my side, waiting for the perfect moment and struggling to keep composure. He paused, looking up, around the room. I held my breath and pressed my back into the wall, grasping the door knob behind me. After a moment, he turned back to his work, carefully setting up syringes and jars around the tub. Chemicals spread in carefully labelled jars, clearly numbered in the order they were to be mixed. He hummed a happy tune, throwing in bloodied scraps of clothing, like he was happy that my friend had been killed in cold blood.

That was my last grasp on all self control.

I let go.

I charged forward, smashing the butt of my pistol into his ear, breaking the ear bud and cutting off his connection. My knee smashed into his face twice before he fell on to his back "Where is she!" I demanded. He jumped up and connected a weak, dazed kick to my stomach, I responded by hitting him solidly across the face. His hand grasped the collar of my shirt and wrenched me forward, his forehead connecting with my own. I staggered back towards the kitchen, catching myself on the counter top. He came at me and I grabbed the closest thing, my fingers wrapping around a glass. I smashed it into his face, green liquid and broken glass shards blinding him. I recognized the fluid right away and could've laughed. _I should slap a brand on it _I thought amusedly _and use 'Sewer water; protects you from lethal viruses and government assassins as the slogan._ I kicked him hard in the chest, sending him reeling back into the living room, his head twanging on the metal tub.

I leapt on him, straddling his waist and pulling him up by the collar of his shirt. I smashed his head back down against the hard wood floor. "Where did they take Alex!".

"I'm not telling you anything!" He snarled and I hit his bleeding face with an empty jar.

"You're going to tell me exactly what I want to know."

"I'd rather die!" he spat, his teeth shining with blood. I opened my mouth to retort and stopped, noting the various metallic syringes practically waiting for me to use, to extract the information I wanted from my unwilling victim. I grabbed the most harmful looking one and gripped it tightly, my thumb resting on the plunger. His eyes filled with a sudden look of fear and I smirked, knowing for sure that I held something dangerous, something he probably wouldn't want mixing with his internal organ.

"Looky here, Cleaner." I said wagging the syringe back and forth in front of him. His eyes were locked on it like homing beacons. "This got your attention, now didn't it?" His eye followed it for a few more seconds before they narrowed at me.

"You don't even know what that is, do you?"

"All that matters is that you do." I gripped his throat tightly, watching as the veins in his neck stood out against his reddening skin, my blood stained hand turning this into some kind of horror movie scene. I touched the tip of the needle to his neck and heard him grunt out a whimper. I smirked "Or if you'd prefer, I could find out exactly what this does the old fashioned way." He glared at me in defiance and I sighed, "alright then" I applied more pressure the needle tip

"WAIT! WAIT I'LL TELL YOU!" He yelped pitifully. I eased up on the needle

"Good choice."


	16. Thawing Ice

**Chapter 16**

_**Amanda**_

"There she is." Percy cooed like a father to the waking Alexandra "good morning, Alexandra, have a nice nap?" She opened her eyes groggily, no doubt the world was just a big confusing blur to her.

"Papa?" She asked, eyes still searching blindly for her long dead father, her voice was tainted lightly with her native accent and desperation. An unexpected throb of sympathy squeezed my chest. Percy chuckled

"Not quiet." She moved her hand towards her forehead and froze when a multitude of tubes and wires pulled taut before her reached her target. She pulled again, small whimpers escaping her lips. I put my hands on her wrists and pressed them into the medical bed,.

"Alex, you're alright." I said, knowing she wouldn't take my word for it. "If you move too much these tubes will rip out of your arm and your body will begin to deteriorate." She blinked a few times, staring at me blankly before looking around. The machines, the needles and IV tubes, Percy, Michael and myself. She blinked again and relaxed, as if finally realising just how much better she must've felt. Then, she went blank again, staring up at the ceiling. Percy looked dazed, confused, even. He had probably expected her to scream and fight, but she didn't. Her eyes unfocused and wrists relaxed.

"Alexandra?" Percy said, waving a hand in front of her face. She closed and opened her eyes slowly, her make-up creating dark circles around her eyes. "Alex, are you there?" No answer came. No life shone in her blinking eyes.

She was dead inside.

"Let me try." Michael said, stepping between me and Percy and leaning over Alex, tilting her head so she faced him, looking him in the eyes but not seeing him. "Alex, Alex you in there?" She maintained her empty stare. "Alex, it's ok, you're fine, no one's going to hurt you." Then, a spark of something shone in her eyes. Something I'd expected, but shocked me all the same.

Soul burning hatred.

"You shot her." She whispered, her empty eyes now shimmering with unshed tears "you killed my family. They were trying to save me, trying to protect me, and you killed them. You took my family from me again."

"She was killing our men, I had no choice—"

"BURN IN HELL!" she screamed, smashing her head against his and sending him reeling backwards. She struggled to sit up and some of our stronger recruits came in, restraining her shoulders and hands. Michael clutched his forehead, using one hand to support himself against the wall. Alexandra struggled against the young men, feebly but with a burning fire in her eyes. One that I'd seen in Nikita's lifetimes ago. I turned to the bed stationed several feet from hers, looking at the near lifeless body resting there and turned back to Alex.

"Katrina is alive, Alex." I said quietly, and, to my surprise, she heard me. She turned and looked at the bed, at the blonde laying there, her chest and shoulder wrapped in blood stained bandages, a breathing tube shoved down her throat and multiple IV's plugged into her wrists and inner-elbows. Her tears overflowed as she stared at her cousin and, for a moment, it was as if she forgot she was in division. Like she forgot who we were and what we did.

"Kat" she sobbed softly, her fingers curling into her hand loosely. She leaned into the railing, licking her dry lips. "Katrina?" She whimpered, turning her tormented eyes on me, almost pleadingly "is she ok?" I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest, walking over to the teenager's bed.

"She suffered a severe concussion from Jayden's abrasive attack, two shots to the upper torso, both through-and-through, one pierced her shoulder and the other grazed her heart." I sent a meaningful glance in Michael's direction before turning back "it took nearly thirty hours of surgery to stop the internal bleeding but, eventually, we got a handle on it. Katrina is…stable for the most part, we were forced to take measures to ensure her full recovery."

"Measures?" Alex questioned, "What measures?" I sighed, looking at the child who'd nearly died, feeling the tightening in my chest and burning in my soul I'd fought for two days to suppress.

"We needed to put her in a comatose state to ensure that she couldn't hurt herself more."

"You put my baby cousin…in a coma?" She pulled against the restraints, the bed frame creaking against the strain. I watched her for a moment, watched her face turn red as she tried with all her power to break free and do something less favourable to us than death. I saw the anger in her eyes, her will to live punching through the haze of exhaustion. Her lips pulled away from her teeth and a long growl of exertion echoed out her throat. Whatever Nikita had been giving her to keep her going had worked, for the most part. It helped her body sustain itself it helped her stay somewhat strong through the effects of the infection. I'd rigged her with stronger vitamins and nutrients to revive her from her near-dead state. Her chest heaved as she exhaled heavily before fighting against the bed again.

I couldn't watch this anymore.

I grabbed the syringe off the little metal table beside Katrina's bed, uncapping it and moving towards the IV. A strong hand grasped my forearm, pulling the needle away from the bag. Michael looked me in the eyes, his as cold as ice and mine burning like fire. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm waking her up." Alex stopped fighting and looked at us, a quizzical look in her eyes at the confrontation between me and the senior agent.

"Are you nuts? She's going to fight worse than Alex once she sees where we took her!" He took a small step closer to me. "This girl is dangerous. You should've seen how easily she slaughtered over fifteen of Division's finest agents."

"She's brilliant and strong, but she also understands when to be calm."

"She's a child, Amanda. She'll fight us all the way because she doesn't know better."

"She knows better, Michael. The sense of invincibility tends to fade after nearly dying from gun shots." I glanced over at Alex as she slowly slumped back into her bed. "Besides, it seems that the mere sight of Katrina possibly being woken up is enough to get Ms. Udinov to calm down." Alex glanced from me to Michael and then to Katrina.

"Percy" Michael said, running to daddy when the situation got too bad on his end "you can't let her do this."

"I can't?"

"No, Katrina is still unstable."

"And whose fault is that?" I demanded, rounding on him and making him jump at the accusation in my voice.

"She killed half of the retrieval squad and mortally wounded the others."

"Let her wake Katrina up." Percy said, breaking our fight up. "I'd like to speak to the kid-genius and see what she knows about Nikita and everything else." Michael let go of me and I turned back to the IV and slid the needle into the small injection site. I pushed down on the plunger and watched as the slightly milky liquid mixed with the clear and eventually disappeared.

Then it was a waiting game.

It would take a little while for the medicine to work, Percy and Michael stepped out to check in with Birkhoff. I watched the two girls closely, arms crossed over my chest, eyes glancing at the clock. I'd been bluffing when I said Katrina wouldn't be violent. I had no idea how she'd react. I didn't know if she'd be fine. Chances were she'd try to rip my head off the second she opened her eyes. I stood slowly, careful not to make too much noise, not to wake Alex who'd faded back into unconsciousness against her conscious will. We didn't drug her, just the silence and lack of hostile people in the room gave her mind a sense of security, telling it it could sleep for a while. I glanced around the windowless room, up at the camera in the corner, knowing that they could see me from Birkhoff's control centre. Nevertheless, I knelt down beside Katrina's bed, pushing her bangs away from her face gently. She'd grown drastically, her nose was remarkably close to her fathers, and her bruise skin was smooth under my finger tips. I tucked the stray hair behind her ears, only for it to fall back out. I lifted her hand carefully, looking at the elegant fingers, decorated with neon band-aids. I unwrapped one slowly, seeing small electrical burns and cuts, probably from wiring something together.

I couldn't help but smile.

"You are a little genius, aren't you?" I murmured, squeezing her hand gently in my own. Her eyes fluttered and she shifted. I stood up, backing away from the girl on the bed, back to the chair on the far side of the room, feeling like I'd been snapped out of a trance. One that I didn't want to leave. "Percy" I radioed in "Katrina's awake."

They walked in moments later, Percy, Michael and an onslaught of recruits. Percy turned to me and gestured for me to leave. I stood and blinked at him. "Percy, I'm not going anywhere. I need to be here. I do the questioning, remember?" He smirked, triggering an unexpected heat to choke me as anger swelled in my chest.

"Change of plans, Amanda. Don't worry though; you'll get your turn with our new friend." He turned towards the door and motioned to me. "Come on, I'll walk you." I hesitated before following slowly. We said nothing the entire way to my level. I remained silent, Percy seemed content with the lack of verbal exchange as well. I had nothing to say to him. I had nothing to say to anyone. Not now, at the very least.

When we reached my floor I stepped out and into the white room, only glancing back at Percy as he waited for me to say some kind of farewell, that disgusting power hungry look practically seeping from his eyes. I swallowed and looked at the ground. "Percy…"

"Yes, Amanda?"

"What happened to Vasily?" He laughed once, a harsh sound, sharp as a knife. I had to force myself not to wince. I wasn't used to weakness like this, where a simple sound could be enough to cripple me.

"Hog tied and shot like the animal he was." My chest tightened.

"Did he suffer?" Percy stepped back into the elevator and, right before the door closed, said

"I sure as hell hope so." As the doors shut I stood there a moment, letting the words settle in my mind. Nausea squeezed my stomach. A crushing grip strangled my heart. I staggered over to the wall, letting my back crash against the cold surface. My head pounded, eyes stung and chest felt tight. My legs folded under me as I slid down the smooth wall, the feeling now overwhelming. My fingers clutched the locket around my neck. When the first tear fell, I couldn't stop the rest. Tears were something I hadn't shed in a long, long time. And so, I cried. I cried with grief, agony and helplessness. I looked up the roof before closing my eyes, pressing the locket to my lips and closing my eyes and feeling the tears continue to roll. _There was nothing you could've done for either of them. _I told myself, knowing the words were all lies. I could've done so much more for them. I could've done everything. But now it was too late.

Or was it?

I opened my eyes again, knowing what I had to do.

Knowing that what I was about to do would ruin two lives.

**Many more twists to come, just you wait.**

**And wait you shall. I have to go away for two weeks where I'll have no internet…so probably no update until I get back unless I feel inspired.**

**Sorry…ish.**


	17. Oblivious Hell Spawn

**Long time no see. **

**This is subject to change considering I've been writing for about two hours straight to get this done because I was woken up at two in the morning by my phone telling me someone reviewed All Fall Down and they told me to get my shit together and write another damn chapter (not really, but I'm tired and so very close to going on a rampage so everything I hear is rather vulgar.) Not sure if I like it but if I do change anything, I'll let you guys know. So, now for my excuse. High school started up again and I have English 11 first block followed by Writing 12 so I'm doing so much writing lately that I'm going slightly off the deep end to the point where I'm almost snapping at everyone I see. If you've ever written this much in such a short time frame, you know what I'm feeling. But, anyway, I'll try to be more regular with my updates and what not.**

**No promises though.**

**Chapter 17**

_**Kitty**_

"Would you just SHUT UP!" I snapped at Alex, my teeth clenched as I pulled against my restraints, my bad arm bound to my torso. Alex had been trying to calm me down for hours now. She'd promised me freedom, promised me that she'd make Division pay for everything they did to my family. I didn't want her to avenge them. I didn't want anything from her. I should've died with him, with my father. I should've died from the gunshots and the concussion. I wanted to die from them. I wanted it to be over. I wanted the pain to stop, both emotional and physical. Amanda had wanted me back. She's the one who saved my life, the one who'd requested that I be brought back alive.

The bitch.

She probably wanted me so she could break me like a horse and then train me like a dog. So I could be her little puppet and she could use me to hack into whatever she wanted. Use me as a replacement for Birkhoff. I yanked at the restraints again, a sudden agitation wrapping around my body. "I don't want you to save me. I don't want anything. I've lost everyone. My sister, my father, my mother. Everyone."

"You still have me, Kat, we're still family whether you want to believe it or not. We are the last of our family. We're the only ones left. You give up now and you're disgracing everyone you've lost. Everyone that _we've_ lost."

"And how exactly am I supposed to do shit when I've got a bum arm and a bullet hole in my chest?" I stared up at the ceiling. I'm sure the remorse and the tears would come soon, but right now I was a seething pit of fury. I wanted them dead. Everyone who'd been involved in the assassination of my family, their friends and their friends' friends would die at my hand. I wanted to kill them, to kill them all.

And that's what scared me the most.

I'd always had a temper, a bad one if I'm being completely honest. One that had driven me to punch some moronic boy in the face in kindergarten and then get in a fight with a catty girl in middle school, both occasions my parents had to come and pick me up. The final time my father sat me down, and told me he, just like my grandfather, had the same temperament. And that's what made us strong. Not the power behind the rage, but the ability to control it and focus it into something productive instead of destructive. That that was how the Udinov Company had been built, with the channelled anger of the men, from which something massive and incomparable had been born. So I tried it, and I managed to finish my first year in University at the age of sixteen.

But, if I started to lose control, what did that make me?

"Alex?" I asked after a long moment of silence, catching my older cousin's attention. She looked at me slowly, an obvious look of exhaustion and loss on her face. "When your family died, how did you deal?" she looked at the wall in front of her again and sighed.

"Well, at first, it was like every night I saw it in my sleep and every morning I would wish it was a dream. I denied it for the longest time. Then, I learned to deal with it by drowning it in heroine and alcohol, the constant abuse made me numb to most things. And when Nikita found me, behind the intoxicated haze I was one pissed off, haunted teenager hell bent on self destruction. When I got clean, I was just angry. Rage and sadness were all I felt." She was quiet for a long while before she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the head rest of the chair she sat in.

"What comes after anger?" She laughed once, a smile crossing her face. I could've sworn she was actually happy until the tear slid out from under one of her closed eyes.

"I wish I knew." The door to the room swung open and in walked the devil in high-heels. Her green eyes scanned the room, searching for something. The anger bubbled in me again, so violently it over flowed.

"What're you doing down here?" I snapped, pulling on the cuffs around my wrists and ankles. "Isn't Percy's lap getting cold without his little bitch there?" She looked at me for a moment, her eyes cold and calculating before she reached up, swiftly unplugging the security camera. Alex shot me a look.

Great.

"You know, Katrina," Amanda said, walking towards the centre of the far wall and leaning against it "I've been waiting a long time to see you, I've heard a lot."

"like what?" I questioned warily, trying to be careful now that there was no surveillance in this room.

Amanda was dangerous. How dangerous, I couldn't be sure. Her file was wiped of all video footage, no mission records or physical condition charts. But, from what Nikita told me, Amanda was lethal when she chose to be, knowing the precise place to hit to disable someone and managing to not mess up her hair. She'd taught Nikita everything, how to fight, how to survive. So, if Nikita was a lioness, Amanda was a sabre tooth tiger. Nothing would take her out if she wanted to win. And right now, we were mice trapped beneath her paw. At her mercy.

She smiled slightly, tilting her head in a curious way.

"I heard from Michael that you managed to decimate an entire attack team in less than a minute."

"They came into my home and attacked my family." I snapped, my rage burning like a wild fire. "What was I supposed to do? Pour them some tea?" She laughed slightly, coolly.

My skin crawled.

"I wasn't ridiculing you." She murmured, a kind of wonder floating in her eyes. "I'm impressed. We trained those recruits for years and you cut them down like wheat." I looked away.

"What do you want, Amanda?" Alex demanded, her voice sounding fierce, but oddly weak at the same time. "If you wanted us dead you would've said 'I have a few questions I'd like you to answer' and then fried our brains." The older woman turned her gaze on my cousin before sitting down in the metal chair opposite us.

"I just wanted to talk." I snorted and she ignored me. "Believe it or not, Katrina." She said in her smooth voice, one that should've been soothing but just riled me up even more "I'm not the monster you've painted me to be. Yes, I've done things I'm not proud of, but everything has had its purpose, everything has been for something. Be it my own self gain or for a greater reason."

"Wow, there's something more important to you than your own self gain? By god, Batman! Say it ain't so!" I mocked her, growing tired of her mind games.

"I met your father." She said suddenly, shocking me into silence. I swallowed involuntarily. "Many years ago, before I was recruited into this slice of heaven." She pointed to the walls. "He was a great man, kind, loving—"

"Shut up!" I snarled "you know nothing about my father!" She was silent. Her eyes held a mixture of emotion I couldn't quiet recognize. Emotions that long festered inside her, that much I was sure of. The feeling she gave off was so intense, it was as if I could feel it pressing against my skin. She rasped her fingers on the arm of the chair before clearing her throat. Whatever she was going to say seemed hard for her, or could it have been that my words hurt her?

Confusion doused the flames burning inside my heart. No way. No one hurt Amanda, no one could. She was in complete control, complete composure twenty-four-seven. She would tear the beating heart out of my chest for even thinking that a teenager could scratch her armour. But looking at her now…

I waited for what she was going to say, curious as to her response.

"Vasily Alrik Udinov, younger brother of Nicolai Udinov, born March third, 1983 to Curtis and Katrina Udinov, the woman you were named after. His favourite colour was blue, loved jazz guitar, had a German Sheppard named Toby when he was five—"

"How do you know all that? What? Did you go rifling through all the files on everyone in the world or some sick shit like that?" Now I was scared. When scared, attack, attack, attack. How did she know that about my dad? How could she have known anything about him? This had to be some bullshit magic trick or mind game. It couldn't be anything else. Alex said nothing, I almost forgot she was there until she coughed a few times. Amanda wrung her hands.

_Nervous._

The word floated through my mind like a cloud. Amanda was nervous.

Hell must've frozen over.

"I didn't look it up, Katrina, I knew all those things, because he told me himself."

"So what? You interrogated him? You played with his head until you convinced him to talk to you? When did it happen? When did you get to my father?"

"1994, the year before you were born, in Moscow, Russia. The year I met your father."

"He never mentioned you. Never told me anything about you, never even said your name. So, how do I know this isn't some lie you're telling me? That you were buddies with my Dad?" She reached into the large belt around the centre of her torso, pulling out a small syringe filled with clear liquid, she'd obviously snuck it in here. She held it up and my eyes followed the silver point, a tightening knot forming in my stomach.

"You can believe me because in this vial is the cure for Alex's disease." I glanced at my cousin briefly, seeing her perk up at the mention of a solution for her death sentence. "In a few moments, I will use this to save her, but, before then, you and I need to talk. I just need you to listen to me, to what I have to tell you…" she closed her eyes for a moment "before I lose what little nerve I have." I nodded.

"Just so long as you save Alex, I'll listen to what you have to say." Alex had been right. She was my only family left, and, as much as she pissed me off, I didn't want to lose her too. So, if this hellhound had something to take away the plague thing she had been infected with, I'd do anything to get it. Even if I'd rather chew broken glass.

"That's not the only reason you should listen to me." She said, crossing one leg over the other. "When I said that everything I did was for more than me rising in the ranks, I wasn't lying. She leaned forward slightly, eyes locked dead on mine. "It was all for you." My heart stopped and Alex's laboured breathing quieted suddenly.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Everything I've done was so I could protect you and your family, keep you under the radar, hide you from Percy and everyone else looking to hurt you." Her eyes softened briefly. "I couldn't let them hurt you, I promised you from the day that you were born I'd protect you."

"Wait! What the fuck is wrong with your head? The day I was born you weren't there! You were crawling out of some hell mouth or something!" She shook her head, eyes squeezing shut at my outburst, leaving her completely vulnerable. Showing her underbelly.

"No, no, no." she said, a hoarse edge to her voice. "I was there, Katrina, I was there because I was the one who had you. I gave you life." I stared at her, hearing my world tearing itself apart and crumbling all around me. No. what she was saying, what she was telling me was lies, all lies. Nothing she said was the truth. It was never the truth. "Alicia wasn't your mother."

She swallowed hard once, opening her eyes again, agony shining clear as day "I am."


	18. Good Luck and Goodbye

**Well, I'll be damned. It's the final chapter of this story, more spurred on by the season 2 premier of Nikita (which was a badass episode, might I add…even though Nikita kicked the shit out of Alex) than the review which told me to get my shit together (but thanks for the thought.) There will be a sequel to this story, just you wait but, until then…**

**Chapter 18**

_**Nikita**_

I stormed into Division, expecting an onslaught of Division agents to swarm me once I reached the training floor.

No one.

I hadn't exactly been stealthy entering. I'd come through the silo and taken out three guards with an un-silenced pistol. I guess part of me didn't care if they heard me coming; maybe the other wanted them to know. I wanted them to know that if they thought they could take Alex and Kat like that and get away with it that they were dead wrong. I was going to rip them apart one piece at a time and listen to them beg me for mercy.

I gave Alicia to Gale and took off after the two girls immediately. I could still feel Vasily's blood on my hands…

_I kicked in the door to Gale's house in my haste to get Alicia warm and cleaned. The icy wind ripped through the house as I pushed the remains of the door closed again. My skin burned where it defrosted in the warmth of the small house. Alicia, still tucked in my down jacket, had fallen asleep on our long trek there. She gripped my shirt tighter in her tiny bloodied hands, nuzzling her face into my neck. I hurried into the kitchen, Turning on the kitchen tap and searching for a bowl, clutching the waking baby to me with my other hand. "You're alright, baby-girl, you're ok." I whispered, sitting her on the counter. She looked around through barely opened eyes. I filled a bowl and shut off the tap. I swapped the bowl for the baby and carefully stripped the encrusted clothing from her body. "We're gonna make you all pretty again, yes we are, yes we are" I cooed softly as she sniffled. I lowered her into the make-shift bath and watched the clear water turn pink. The dried blood on my hands turned slick as I rinsed the rust __colour__ stains from her body, using a cloth to wipe her face. I kissed her forehead gently, feeling her wet hands clasping my face. "You are so beautiful, you know that?" she smiled slightly, her lips parting in a near-toothless grin. _

_One day, when she was old enough, I'd tell her about her father. Or maybe it'd be better coming from Alex or Kitty. _

_How the hell was I gonna handle three girls? Handling Alex was hard enough on her own, but a sixteen-year-old and a baby? _

_Jesus._

_I smiled. A family that I could finally call my own._

"_You got some balls breaking into a cop's house! RCMP! Don't move or I'll blow your goddamn head off!" A familiar voice barked, quickly followed by the blonde woman I'd become friendly with over a period of a few years. Her pistol was drawn, pointed straight at me, her winter jacket zipped up to her neck. I put my hands in the air, unable to hold back my smile when Alicia mimicked me, a happy giggle passing through her lips, making me forget myself for a second. _

"_Ok, yes I stole the cookie from the cookie jar." She groaned and put her gun away_

"_Jesus, Nik, there's a key under the brick in the built in planter! You didn't need to go all Rambo on my front door." And, in that second, the past few hours came screaming back into my mind. "What's up?" she asked, looking at the expression on my face. _

"_Division found us." She froze, finally taking in my bloodied clothing and the ruined baby clothes on the counter. _

"_Oh my God, Nikita, did they..?" _

"_They took Alex and Kat, Kitty's blood is all over the front room, along with several dead agents." _

"_Vasily…"_

"_He's dead. They tied him up like an animal and put a bullet through his head."_

"_But Alicia…"_

"_They left her in his blood. They wanted me to focus on getting her out of there instead. But I waited for the cleaner instead, left Alicia upstairs."_

"_Then…"_

"_I beat the shit out of the cleaner and threatened to clean _him_ if he didn't tell me where they took them."_

"_and now…"_

"_Now I'm going after Division, and I'm going to tear them apart." We were quiet for a long time after that, Grant staring at me, emotions welling from us both. "I'm leaving Alicia with you." I said quietly, "I, uh…there was no one else I could trust." _

"_I'm going with you." She said, a sudden fierceness in her voice. I looked at her, seeing how the tears glistened in her eyes and her lips set in a firm, straight line. Alicia Sr. had been the blonde's best friend, Vasily had become like a brother to her within months. When Alicia died, not only did it destroy Kit and her father, but it killed Gale too. _

"_No, you need to stay here with Alicia." I grabbed her hand as she reached for her gun again. "I need you to protect her, because now I can't." She looked at me, her eyes full of agony._

"_He was one of my best friends, Nik. He was family."_

"_And that baby girl right there is all that is left of him. If you leave her now, there'll be nothing left of him." She nodded slowly and sniffled, looking away from me, to the infant sitting in the bowl, splashing her hands in the water. _

"_You promise me one thing." She said, looking back at me "when you find this son of a bitch, you give him what he has coming, and then you give him more."_

And here I stood, in the middle of the training room with my guns at the ready and nothing to shoot at. I was confused, to say the least. Suddenly, the lights shut off and a projector started up, blasting a video on the wall like a movie screen. The layout of a mansion taken by a satellite.

Infiltration of the Udinov mansion.

It all came flooding back.

_My palms are sweaty, my throat feels dry. This is wrong. I can feel it in my gut. We were going to run into this home and kill a family, including a thirteen-year-old girl. I'm nervous, Michael rests his hand on my shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze before we storm the house. I kill three guards, one with a single shot to the head, another with the butt of my assault rifle and the final one with a stab to the throat with my bayonet. _

_There's no hesitation, no stopping. We all run, we shoot whoever we see who isn't us or the people who paid us. I don't like this. I don't want this. This feels wrong, just like the jobs before. _

_The walls are burning around us, the floor feels hot beneath my boots and I'm suffocating in my gas mask. I take out some of the custodial staff as they run past. My rifle clicks empty and I chuck it to the ground. Somewhere in the house I hear a woman scream, the earpiece I had in rings it out loud and clear _

"_Mother down." _

_I bust in the first door I see and come face to face with Nicolai Udinov, wearing only his robes, a wrist watch gleaming on his arm. He pulls his pistol on me, but I'm faster as I grab my secondary weapon and fire._

_He falls to the ground, turning towards the bed, reaching out under it. I pull off my mask and pull my radio to my mouth._

"_Father down."_

_I pull off his watch and look under the bed after disabling my receiver, finding the girl sprawled on the hard wood floor. _

_Then it hits me._

_She's my way out. She can be the one thing I don't do for Division. The one thing I do that's right in my entire life. The one thing I can do that makes everything different. I could save her. I could help her. I didn't have to listen to Percy and his rules. I could be my own person. In that moment, I decide something._

_Fuck Percy. _

_I grab her arms and haul her out from under the bed, pulling her to me and then draping her over my shoulder. I carefully make my way out of the mansion without being seen and make my way to the road. "Don't worry, Alexandra" I tell her quietly "you'll be safe, they won't touch you again."_

The footage cut out and then faded in with an interrogation I had after the mission with Amanda. I wasn't really paying attention to it, I'd relived that moment so many times on my own that this recap really didn't do it justice.

"Of course I recognized him; the man I killed was Nicolai Udinov."

The footage cut out completely, plunging me yet again into darkness. The lights came back on and a voice coming from behind me made me jump. Suddenly, I wasn't alone.

"You lied to me." her voice came from behind me; I turned to face her, my heart stopped.

"Alex, you don't—"

"Don't tell me I don't understand, Nikita!" She snapped, tears forming in her eyes. A leather jacket covered her torso, jeans and boots covered the rest. She looked tired, I noticed. Sick still. "You said that I had something to live for, that was the only thing you said that was true!"

"No! Alex—"

"I lost everything! I lost my uncle! I lost my baby cousin!"

"Alex—"

"I nearly lost Katrina too!"

"She's alive?"

"Just barely." A second voice snarled. I looked towards the control centre and saw the sixteen-year-old standing there, hair spiked back like needles glued to her head, her arm wrapped to her body with a tense bandage, white tank top and baggy cargo pants. "Your boy Michael shot me twice, nearly letting me bleed out on my living room floor."

"My boy?" I asked, confused suddenly.

"Oh, you haven't heard?" Alex asked as Kitty hopped the railing and landed evenly on the smooth flooring. "In Percy's absolute delight at having both Katrina and I back, Michael took the opportunity to get answers he wanted. And what he found out, he didn't like too much."

"His family dying was an inside job. He barged into the Big Man's office and wasn't there to join him in a tea party."

"He knocked the living daylights out of Percy and stole his black box."

"We figured he'd come back and try to find you, pledge his undying love for you while he was at it." They began circling me slowly, the diameter closing in little by little. I didn't understand. They were both so angry, so hostile. It was if I'd come in here for a rescue mission and ended up in an ambush.

"Why didn't you tell us both the truth?" Alex demanded, stopping her orbit the same time as Kat.

"I just…There wasn't a proper time, I didn't know…I didn't know how you'd take it." The words fumbled from my mouth as I tried to push through the confused haze that'd formed in my mind.

"Then what about me, Nikita?" Kat asked, her eyes also pooling with unshed tears "what possible reason could there be for you not to tell me that my mother wasn't the woman who raised me? That Amanda gave birth to me in this same goddamn secret government operation base? That you were the one who brought me to my father all those years ago!" This was verging on too much. Amanda had told her about that? Amanda had brought that back up, even though she made it clear that I was to never think of that night or speak of it?

That night wasn't something I liked to think about, mind you. Yes, something beautiful was brought into the world that night, a girl who brought so much joy to my life as I watched her grow into a beautiful young woman, as I pulled her from the icy waters after she'd tried to drown herself with the weight tied around her waist. But that night was also a very dark, very bloody night. On that was filled with many lives taken in order to secure the safety of one.

"Where's Percy?" I asked, curious as to why he wasn't making an appearance.

"When Michael knocked him out, Amanda had some of the recruits drag him down to the very bottom floor and lock him in the holding cell."

"He's not going anywhere."

"And neither are you." At the same, exact moment, they both kicked my guns from my hands, sending them spiralling well out of reach.

"You don't want to do this." I said warningly "you don't know what you're getting yourselves into."

"It's nothing personal, Nikita." Kat said, wiping her eyes. "We give Division the black box and they give us everything we need. Unfortunately for you, the only way we get the black box is if we get Michael, and the only way we get Michael is if we have you."

"Need for what?" I asked, feeling my anxiety begin to rise. They were both so different, so calculating and cold. Kat wasn't being sarcastic, Alex wasn't smiling in her slight way. They wanted blood.

"For taking back Zetrov." Alex answered, "we're going after the man who took what was rightfully ours."

"They're using you both, you have to know that." I said, trying to get some reason in their heads. "Once they have the black box, they'll toss you away like yesterday's garbage."

"The thing is, we're using them too. Once we have what _we _want, we'll take them down too if it suits our fancy."

"They won't let you get that far." Alex stepped forward, her brows furrowed in a look of concentration.

"Then I guess you win."

At once they attacked.

I blocked Kat's punch and redirected the one Alex threw my way. Even with Kat's handicap, she was still able to move with such agility that I had to focus hard to ensure she didn't get me while I took on Alex. I pushed away Kat's kick and grabbed Alex's fist. "I don't want to fight you!" I cried and Kat knocked my legs out from under me. My back crashed against the ground hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. I coughed and rolled onto my side. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to storm in here, shoot the place all to hell and take my girls and go. And yet, here I was, completely vulnerable, completely alone with my own perfect enemies that I trained myself. I taught them everything I knew, and now they were going to kill me for it.

That was, at least, until something else caught their attention. I turned my head and looked.

Michael stood by the elevator door, hands clenched into fists by his side. Alex took a step forward and Kat put her hand on her cousin's shoulder. The teenager stepped forward, just in time to knock one of Michael's throw away and land two of her own, her tenser streaming around as it came undone. Michael caught it and wrapped it around his hand, using it as leverage to pull her in the direction of his choosing. Until, that is, Kat slit it down the sides after drawing a knife from her waistband, the same place I used to stash mine when I first started out. Michael kicked the weapon away, noticing how much more of an issue Kat's arm was now that it wasn't secured to her body.

Seeing my opportunity, I grabbed one of Alex's legs and pulled, sending her to the floor with a surprised yelp. I was on her in a second, straddling her waist in an effort to keep her pinned. "Alex!" I yelled as she struggled against me. I looked up at Kat and Michael, swallowing hard as I realised just how bad her arm was.

Her shoulder had a bullet hole in it the size of a quarter, the skin around the hole was bruised and torn, stitched together by threads that were beginning to tear. Her face was a contorted mask of pain, a thin sheet of sweat beginning to form on her body. But she wasn't slowing down.

"Alex! Look at me!" I snapped, pushing her struggling hands down once again. "You have no idea what they're going to do once you give them the black box!"

"Nikita! Get off!" I felt her muscles tense under me as she made an attempt to turn over and flip me off of her.

"Why are you doing this!"

"Because you killed my father!" Now she was starting to frustrate me.

"The sooner you stop lying to yourself, the sooner you will be able to see the truth!" I stared down into her eyes, trying to make her see what she was getting herself into "doing this won't bring your family back! It won't bring you closure! You're disgracing Vasily's memory!" Her hand broke free momentarily and she socked me in the jaw before I had the chance to get a grip again. I fell back and now it was her turn to b the one pinning me down. She drew back her hand, ready to send her fist flying into my face at any moment.

"Give us the box, Michael!" She demanded, stopping the other two in their tracks as Kat was about to drive her knee into his stomach. His eyes flickered between me and Alex a few times before he huffed once.

"Not a chance." He reached across himself and grabbed Kat's bad arm, squeezing the area closest to the socket and the bullet hole. With a blood curdling scream, Kat's legs gave out and she fell limp in Michael's arms, her fingers clawing at his shirt. Alex immediately tensed, her grip loosening enough that I could've broke free, but my train of thought wouldn't let me. The look of pure agony on the young girl's face as Michael squeezed made me sick. Nausea twisted violently in my stomach as her head fell back, small sobs shaking her entire body, her jaw hanging open, eyes squeezed shut, her face turning red as she tried to bite the noises that came from her. Flashes of memories of Kat when she was little came flooding back into my mind.

_I carried the baby through the night streets of Vancouver, holding her close to me, trying to keep her warm. I was nervous, to say the least. I'd never had any sort of contact with babies before. I just knew I had to bring her to her father and get out right away. I looked down at the tiny face, her eyes staring into mine with so much wonder and curiosity. He pudgy little arm reached up, gently patting my face. A sudden calm swept over me and I smiled, despite myself. "Hey, little girl." I said quietly, tracing her plumb cheeks with my finger tip "you're going to be just fine. We're going to see your daddy."_

Another one hit me like a truck

"_Nikita!" the tiny three year old blonde mumble, waddling into the house from the snow, dressed in so much snow gear it looked like she couldn't walk properly. It was winter and I'd been put in charge of baby-sitting duty. "Look at my snow man!" I couldn't help but laugh and look up from the book I was reading. Her pudgy cheeks were rosy from the cold, her little mittens and Transformers snow boots looked like she'd gone through the Himalayas. Her wet mits grabbed my pant leg and tugged. "Come on!" I shook my head slight and put the book down. _

"_Alright, alright." I stood up and she gave me the biggest, toothless grin. I could've seen the snow man if I'd simply looked out the window, but I knew it would mean more if I went with her into the freezing cold instead. Once I had my jacket on, I lifted the child into my arms. _

She wouldn't remember that, of course, I had to leave back to Division and I wouldn't see her for ten years or so.

_We were sitting on the couch watch a movie; she'd fallen asleep on my shoulder. I smiled, noticing how much she reminded me of the baby I brought here all those years ago. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer to me. She shifted in her sleep, her arm wrapping around my waist loosely, spiked hair prickling under my chin. _

I blinked

"I said, let Nikita go!" Michael snarled, his hand tightening and pulling another agonized scream from the child he held hostage. She tried to fight, tried to push through the pain and hit him hard enough to make him let go, but all she could down was flex her fingers. Tears streamed from her eyes, trickling down her forehead from her upside down position. I could see the small amount of blood covering Michael's fingers and slowly dripping on the white floor. With the sound of grating bones, Alex's weight lifted off me as she stood up. I scrambled to my feet just as a gun shot rang out. We all turned to see Amanda holding a pistol aimed at the roof.

"Release the girl, Michael." She commanded, "or the next bullet is the one that pierces that thick skull of yours." He dropped Kat to the ground with a solid thud, her body curled in on itself, small wails came from her as she clutched her bad arm to her torso. I'd never seen her so completely destroyed, immobilized. She was just a child.

A baby.

She grunted as Alex ran to her side, her older cousin rolling her onto her back and pushing the hair from her eyes. When the brunette looked up at Michael and I as we backed away from them and towards the elevator, her eyes were full of agony, full of betrayal and regret. I swallowed hard, feeling Michael's hand grasp my arm and pull me towards the exit. I didn't want to leave them like this, with Katrina bleeding on the floor, withering in pain. With Alex hushing her cousin gently, trying to sooth a pain that nothing would take away. She rested her forehead against the blonde's but looked up at me when the doors started closing. That look was one that would haunt me forever.

It was the look of someone who was ready to do whatever it took to tear you to shred if you got in their way. Someone who trusted no one but themselves. Someone who'd lost it all.

Someone whose only feeling was rage and pain.

Even in the silence of the small, metal box, I was being swallowed by the sound of my heart, and the question that kept ringing louder and louder in my mind.

_What have I done?_


End file.
